


Combien de Temps

by rabidchild67



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: About to Die, Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Bottom Spock, Community: ksbigbang, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Smut, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:39:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, things start a little backwards. Or, five times Jim and Spock screwed before they admitted it really meant something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my story for Kirk/Spock Big Bang 2013. Takes place immediately after the events in ST:ID.
> 
> I was so very fortunate to receive simply _amahzing_ art by sanwall [here](http://trailsofpaper.tumblr.com/post/54943662961/this-is-my-contribution-to-the-k-s-bigbang-2013) and by raja815 [here](http://raja815.livejournal.com/148746.html); they may be slightly spoilery.

There is an ancient Vulcan legend, of the warrior bond – _t’hy’la_ it was called. To be _t’hy’len_ was the highest form of bonding, deeper and more profound than a familial or even a marital bond, and was considered to be a great honor. _T’hy’len_ lived together, loved together, fought and died together. A warrior whose _t’hy’la_ had been killed in battle rarely survived him long. Their deeds and their bond were to be celebrated for the ages, their parting a tragedy to fuel epic ballads.

Over the intervening millennia, the significance of the word and, indeed, the warrior bond itself, morphed in a variety of ways, gradually falling out of favor in the time of Surak, but reappearing in later centuries. Today it had variable definitions and, according to its context, meant “brother,” “friend,” or even “lover.” 

Spock looked upon Jim Kirk in his hospital bed more than two weeks after the battle with Khan – two weeks after he watched him die – and thought they might be _t’hy’len_. 

After a fashion. 

They had fought at each other’s sides. They would – they both knew – lay down their lives for each other. There could be no more profound link between two friends. But he found the realization of this fact difficult to parse with the reality of their relationship to date. All he knew was that in Jim’s presence he felt something his own feelings were inadequate to express, and he did not like that uncertainty. 

He also found himself lately with an illogical need to remain at Jim’s side, as if by his mere presence he might prevent him from coming to further harm. He knew this was irrational, and yet - 

“You brought a chess set?” Jim asked, struggling to sit up in his bed. It was one day after he regained consciousness, 25.8 hours since he thanked Spock for saving his life. Spock held the set between them as if it were a shield.

“We have not played in some time.”

Jim blinked at him; there was something open in his face, something Spock would name, “gratitude” if he didn’t know better. 

Spock set up the game on a nearby antigrav table that he positioned over Jim’s lap, then took a seat. 

“You take white,” Jim said, and Spock spun the game 180 degrees. He moved a pawn and watched as Jim reached out a hand to move one of his own. His hand shook, however, and he knocked over his Queen-side rook. “Dammit!” he cursed, and fumbled to right the piece, knocking over three others in the process.

“Is something wrong? Are you in pain? Shall I inform Doctor McCoy?”

Jim’s face colored, though if it was from embarrassment or something else, Spock could not tell. “No, it’s – he already knows. There’s some lingering nerve and muscle damage, but it’s supposed to go away in a few days.” 

“Do you require assistance?” Spock reached out to set the fallen pieces back into their places, finishing by moving the pawn Jim had been reaching for into the space he appeared to have intended for it to go. 

“I do not, Commander,” Jim said, his voice containing the steely note he affected when he delivered orders on the bridge. Spock rested his hand in his own lap and straightened his spine. “It’s your move,” Jim added, his voice gentler. 

They played to a draw, Spock ignoring Jim’s failing hand-coordination. Neither of them had his head in the game at any rate – it was clear each of them had other things on their minds. “Shall we play another?” Spock suggested, and Jim agreed, yawning. 

Spock rose. “You need rest. I will return tomorrow for our rematch.”

“You don’t have to go,” Jim said, fumbling to grasp Spock by the wrist. At the touch, Spock perceived a flurry of Jim’s surface thoughts and emotions.

_i’m scared Spock  
help me not be_

They were the words Jim had spoken two weeks ago – a memory – and Spock heard them in his dreams every night. Jim’s fear was replaced by shame and he pulled away. Spock turned his wrist quickly and held him lightly. “You need not –“ he began.

“Spock, I –“ 

_sorry, sorry, sorry_  
shit you’re a touch telepath  
please don’t leave  
god, so pathetic 

Spock dropped Jim’s hand as he realized he’d transgressed; he did not mean to read his friend, had only meant to reassure, or so he told himself. 

“Do not –“ _apologize,_ Spock had been about to say, but to say it would admit he’d read Jim’s thoughts. He caught a look of anxiety on Jim’s face before he looked away, and he stood there, frozen with indecision over whether to stay or leave. 

He was saved by Doctor McCoy entering the room, a nurse in his wake. Without looking at either of them, he began waving a tricorder over Jim and frowning at the readout. 

“What’s the prognosis?” Jim asked. Spock noticed Jim had settled a neutral expression on his face and marveled at his ability to mask his emotions; he was not sure he’d been very effective at it himself.

“I’m afraid you’ll live,” McCoy answered tersely. “Now get outta here.”

“Wh-what?” Jim asked, incredulous. 

“You’re being discharged.”

Jim’s mouth hung open in disbelief as Spock said, “Doctor, surely the Captain requires additional time to recuperate.”

“Which he can do at home.”

“He was in a coma just two days ago.”

“And now he’s not. His vitals are strong, and he’s eating and all seems more or less normal.” He eyed Jim. “You feel normal?”

“Yes?”

“You promise to report to Outpatient Services for PT every day for the next two weeks?”

“Yes!”

“Then you’re cleared to go.”

Spock, incredulous, was dismayed to hear his voice raise an octave as he protested, “Surely Starfleet Medical does not require the _bed_. I, therefore, am at a loss to understand –“

“Shut it, Spock,” Jim hissed at him.

Spock raised an eyebrow and regarded his captain. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t look a gift discharge in the mouth.”

“Jim, I must protest most strenuously,” Spock began, but something in Jim’s eyes – something desperate – made him stop. “How will you get home?”

“I’ll call a cab.”

“Nonsense, I have a transport just outside.”

“There you go.”

Spock could feel his mouth pressing into a very thin line and it took a concerted effort to make it stop. “This is highly illogical.”

“So noted,” McCoy said. “Now, can we give the man some privacy while he gets dressed? The nurse here will get you some clothes.”

Spock followed McCoy out into the hallway, where he stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. “Doctor, your willingness to discharge the Captain when he is clearly in no shape to be away from medical supervision is highly irregular.”

“Listen, don’t give me any guff, I’m doing it for his own good, OK?” 

Spock blinked. “I fail to see –“

“Well, you wouldn’t, would you, because you don’t know him like I do.”

“I –“ Spock closed his mouth; McCoy was right, and it pained him to admit it.

“He’s scared shitless, and keeping him here’s not doin’ his recovery a lick of good. Do _you_ think he’s over what’s happened?”

“I do not.” Jim had literally died, and adding to that, Admiral Marcus’s actions had affected all of them in a most distressing way. It was a hard thing to realize your superior officer was prepared to murder an entire starship’s crew to cover up his intention to start an intergalactic war.

“Well, I don’t want to do this, but if he’s at home, he’ll be more comfortable. Being here is putting him under too much stress.”

“Doctor, if the Captain is emotionally compromised, it must be reported.”

“I won’t do that to him, and neither will you, Commander. Look, he’ll get over it in his own time, I’m sure of it. But keeping him in the hospital is exactly the wrong way to do it. And I won’t clear him for duty until I’m convinced he’s doing all right, if that means anything to you.”

Spock could plainly see the concern for Jim written on McCoy’s face, and knowing he would not wittingly clear Jim for duty before he was ready, he reluctantly chose to comply with the doctor’s recommended course of action. Nevertheless, he needed to be sure of one thing. “You are certain he is physically capable of being on his own?”

“I’m a doctor first, and his friend second. I wouldn’t let him out of here if I didn’t think he would do all right.”

\----

“Jesus, this is hard. What the hell was Bones thinking letting me out of the hospital?” Jim looked up at the remaining stairs ahead of them. Just one flight to go and they’d be at his front door. 

“I might ask, ‘What were _you_ thinking when you hired rooms in a four-story walk-up,’ but it is clear…” Spock adjusted his grip around Jim’s back and huffed a little breath of air out through his lips, “that you were not thinking!” 

“It’s in a historic neighborhood,” Jim protested, grunting as he lifted his left leg to mount one more step. 

“I could carry you,” Spock offered, not for the first time.

“You will _not!_ ” Jim ordered, and they struggled up the remaining stairs to Jim’s door.

Once inside, Spock helped Jim to his bed and deposited him on it rather more clumsily than he intended, then stood back and straightened out his uniform jacket. “Do you require anything?” he asked, struggling to regain his breath.

“Some water? And my PADD – it’s on the coffee table.”

Spock went to fetch the requested items and then settled himself in the living area on the couch.

“Spock,” Jim called after several moments. “You sticking around?”

Their voices echoed off the empty walls of Jim’s apartment; he had clearly never really moved into the place, as many of his belongings remained in boxes in the office. 

“Someone must remain with you to ensure you do not fall and injure yourself.” 

“I’m not going to crack my head open or anything.”

“You will forgive me if I do not believe you. You barely made it up a half flight of stairs before you required assistance.”

“Are you going to shout at me all afternoon, Spock, or will you come in here and have a normal conversation?”

Spock refrained from sighing and rose. 

“If you’re going to stay, you should hang out with me,” Jim said as soon as he appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. 

Spock raised an eyebrow. “What does this entail?”

Jim rolled his eyes. “Hanging out? You just – you hang out. Come over here and sit down.”

Spock approached the bed and sat on its edge with his back perfectly straight. “Is this acceptable?” he asked after several moments. 

Jim sighed. “You might be more comfortable if you sat over here.” He indicated the vacant other half of the bed. 

Spock complied, sitting with his back against the head of the bed, feet hanging over the side to prevent dirtying the duvet with his boots.

“There, isn’t that nice?” Jim asked.

“It is no different than when I sat over there.” A further minute passed. “Does this fulfill your definition of ‘hanging out’?” Spock asked.

“Yes. It’s what friends do. We’re friends, right?”

Spock looked at Jim, their eyes locking. 

Jim’s eyes on his were unreadable, their color as vibrant as ever Spock recalled them being. Again, his memory returned to that horrible moment in Engineering, when he watched that intense color fade as Jim died mere inches from him while he was powerless to prevent it. 

_”I want you to know why I couldn’t let you die. Why I went back for you.”_

_“Because you are my friend.”_

He closed his eyes.

“Something’s wrong,” Jim observed.

“It is nothing.”

“Spock, by now, I can tell when something’s bothering you. Spill, and that’s an order.”

Spock chose his words carefully, talking around his true thoughts as deftly as he could. “It has been extremely difficult for me to recover my emotional stability since the events of two weeks ago.” 

_Watching you die has gutted me, is what you might say, Jim_ he thought, but did not say. 

“No amount of meditation or reflection has aided me in my attempts to recover the equilibrium I had enjoyed before. It is discomfiting.”

“’These are the times that try men’s souls,’” Jim quoted Thomas Paine. 

“Please elaborate.”

“We were all of us betrayed by a man who had sworn not only to uphold the values of the Federation and of Starfleet, but by one who was supposed to always have our backs. It’s hard to come back to reality with your principles intact, much less any sense of innocence or idealism.”

“I do not think I had much innocence to lose.”

“Then I think you’re lying to yourself. I think you had a great deal of faith in Starfleet – as did I, as did every man and woman aboard the Enterprise – and that faith has been all but destroyed. It shakes a person up, makes him question everything.”

“Such a reaction is not very logical.”

“These are illogical times, Spock.” Jim licked his lips and lay back against the pillows piled beneath his back. “But you’ll get over it. I’ll help if you want.” He smiled slightly, the expression chasing the seriousness of their conversation out of the room. 

Spock turned his face away from him, unconsciously mirroring Jim’s position on the bed with his head resting back against the headboard. This loss of idealism to which Jim referred was the very least of the matters troubling him, but he was loath to admit it to the very person upon whom those troubles rested. Spock had hoped that spending time in Jim’s company, seeing him awake and alive and healed would put a stop to, or at least lessen the intensity of, his illogical fear that his friend would die again. 

\----

“No!”

Spock opened his eyes to a darkened room. Jim had dropped off to sleep as they talked earlier, and Spock had returned to the living room to attempt to ease his own mind through meditation. As usual lately, it provided little relief from his troubling thoughts, and the low, desperate moan coming from the bedroom roused him almost the second it was uttered. He rushed to Jim’s bedside to find him asleep, as he’d left him, but his face was contorted, reflecting some inner emotional turmoil.

“Spock!” he said, and by the light filtering through the bedroom windows from the street outside, Spock could see the tears streaming down his friend’s face. He sat down beside Jim and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Jim.”

Jim opened his eyes with a startled intake of breath, his eyes finding Spock’s in an instant. “It’s you,” he said after a moment.

“It is.”

“You didn’t leave.”

“I told you I would remain to assist you should you require it in your recuperation. I still believe Doctor McCoy was in error when –“

“No, I mean you didn’t leave me when I died,” Jim interrupted.

“I – no, I did not.”

“You stayed,” Jim said, “you stayed with me.”

“I could no sooner have left than shed one of my arms, Jim.”

Jim took a shuddering breath and it was in that moment that Spock realized he was sweating and trembling. “You are shaking – are you fevered?” Spock rested the back of his hand against Jim’s forehead. 

_here with me_  
stay  
don’t go  
pleasepleaseplease 

Jim’s emotions – fear, desperation, anguish – assaulted him, and it was all Spock could do not to flinch away, to maintain the brief contact required to ascertain if he had an elevated temperature or not. 

“I keep reliving it in my dreams,” Jim confessed.

Spock didn’t need to ask what he meant. “Are not dreams a way for sentient beings to process what has happened to them? This is perhaps your subconscious doing the work it must to make you well.”

“Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.” He turned onto his side, facing Spock, and wrapped his arms around himself, his shivering not abating.

At a loss as to what to do, Spock placed his hand on Jim’s shoulder and patted him clumsily; his mother had done the same for him when he was a child, and he recalled it had soothed him. 

“Spock?” Jim asked at length.

“Yes?”

“Is that all the work you’ve done on your b-bedside manner?”

“It is insufficient.” Spock was slightly dismayed.

“Think you could maybe just, stay here? Like before, in the bed?” Jim asked, his voice muffled, since he’d tucked his face against the bedding.

“That is highly irregular.”

“It’ll be better if you’re here,” Jim replied through chattering teeth. 

Spock regarded the distress that was written in Jim’s every tensed muscle and trembling limb and could not help but be moved. He went around to the other side of the bed and kicked off his boots, then stripped off his uniform jacket and shirt, placed them carefully on the back of a nearby chair, and laid himself atop the covers as he had been before. Jim, meanwhile, had turned over to face him and squirmed closer, his arms still hugging himself tightly as he nudged up against Spock’s side.

“You’re really warm,” Jim murmured.

“Vulcans’ basal body temperature is several degrees above that of human norm, so there is no doubt you will find me… palliative.”

“It’s nice.”

Spock recalled tales of _t’hy’len_ past who comforted each other through great hardships, injuries, and illnesses. 

“Maybe it’d be better if you got under the covers – retain all that Vulcan body heat.”

Spock searched Jim’s face for any sign of insincerity but could discern none. He pushed the covers back and slid his legs beneath them, lying down on his side with his head on one of the pillows. Jim got closer and he was, indeed, palpably cooler than Spock’s own body. Remembering once again the soothing gestures his mother would employ, he rubbed a hand up and down Jim’s upper arm to warm him. Humming, Jim wriggled closer, his front now flush against Spock’s, and before he knew it, had pulled Spock’s arm around himself, resting his head just beneath Spock’s chin. Spock resisted the instinct to freeze up.

“There, that’s good, that’s perfect.”

“Do you think you might sleep again?” Spock asked stiffly.

Jim nodded. 

“That is good, for McCoy impressed upon me the need for you to rest sufficiently.”

“He’s an old worry-wart.”

“He has your best interests in mind.”

“That’s what he says.”

“He saved you.”

“He does that all the time.”

_You do not die all the time,_ Spock did not say as he shored up his mental shields and tightened his arms around Jim, ignoring the fact that it felt very right.

\----

“No, no, no.” Jim was dreaming again.

“Jim,” Spock said, instantly awake. His body tensed against as Spock became aware of the overwhelming sense of fear pouring off of Jim along every inch of skin where their bodies touched. He fought to contain his reaction and to raise his mental shields against the onslaught.

“All alone,” Jim whimpered in his sleep, reacting to a nightmare they were both experiencing.

“You are not. I am here.”

_empty_  
yawning, screaming emptiness   
nothing  
there was nothing there  
quiet, so quiet  
nothing there 

Jim’s emotions were like a tsunami within Spock’s mind, swamping his shields and making them crumble. He gasped as he struggled to raise them again and failed. The only thing to do would be to disengage physically, but that would be difficult since in his dream-induced terror, Jim had latched on to Spock’s body like a limpet.

_don’t want to go_  
please   
Spock! 

These last words were uttered aloud, but by Spock himself, Jim’s anguish filling him so completely it supplanted his own controls, his own thoughts and feelings. He knew he must put a stop to it. He alone must take action or risk permanent damage to his own mind. He wracked his brain for an answer, even as the emotions Jim experienced in his nightmare filled him to overflowing. 

_pleasepleaseplease  
I don’t want to die_

A meld – a meld would work, but Spock would not do that to a non-consenting mind, to do so would break the most basic laws of Vulcan.

“Spock!” they both thought, cried out, _felt_. 

Perhaps it was some vestige of Jim’s incursion into his mind, perhaps it was something he subconsciously wanted, but Spock did the only thing he could think of and kissed Jim.

The fear plateaued as awareness returned and Jim’s eyes opened wide. He pulled away from Spock, a shocked gasp on his lips. His emotions did not retreat from Spock’s mind, but with his consciousness, so too a kind of control exerted itself, and Spock could shield once again. He still felt Jim’s turmoil, but it no longer threatened to overwhelm him.

And then Jim kissed him back. 

Through their contact, Spock could feel Jim’s terror subsiding quickly. Within the space of a thought, it morphed into something else entirely as Spock returned the kiss; there was a sense of comfort being taken, and of relief.

_needthisneedyouplease_

Almost out of instinct, Spock felt his own left hand coming up to caress Jim’s face. Jim made a small, desperate mewling sound as he opened his mouth to allow Spock’s tongue access. 

_pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease_

Spock could tell that Jim was not so much begging for his attentions as he was _in need of_ them, and Spock knew it was his role as Jim’s _t’hy’la_ to give them to him. Soon, Jim’s hands were fumbling at the closure of Spock’s uniform pants – he’d forgotten he’d worn them into the bed – but whatever vestiges of the nerve damage Jim had referred to earlier in the day must have remained, for he made a sound of frustration in the back of his throat. Spock obligingly undid his own pants, gasping as Jim shoved his hand inside to bring his half-hard member out into the close air beneath the covers. Jim bit Spock’s bottom lip and, when Spock hissed, ran the flat of his tongue over it to soothe. Spock groaned as Jim began to stroke him to full hardness, reaching down and around to cup Jim’s still-clothed buttocks and pull their groins closer.

_God!_ he heard or felt Jim say, the desperation the man felt now centered on their sexualized activity instead of the terror at being alone forever. Spock, for his part, was satisfied to have helped his friend to this point and, if he told the truth, he himself had a need for this. Jim’s death had affected him more profoundly than he would admit to anyone, perhaps even himself, and to offer this small comfort – to help him to feel less fear, less loneliness – to get over this trauma made it worth it.

Spock ran his hand along the waistband of the drawstring pants the hospital had sent Jim home in and managed to push them down to his knees in three movements. Jim fumbled to pull Spock closer, but soon gave it up, his arms trembling. “I can’t. I still can’t _do anything,_ ” he whined.

“Let me,” Spock whispered, turning them so Jim was on his back. He shoved his own pants off of his legs and levered himself over Jim with his own, strong arms. Jim spread his legs and Spock lowered himself between them, their twin erections bobbing against each other as Spock eased his body atop Jim’s. As he looked down, he saw the expression on Jim’s face was clear and open, lips slightly kiss-swollen and parted, blue eyes as bright as ever, and he longed with a yearning he would not name to make sure that face and those eyes would never again know the fear and doubt he’d been sensing in him all day. As Spock dipped his head down to take Jim’s lower lip between his again, he poured as much of that sentiment as he could into the gesture. And even though there was no way Jim could know he was doing it, not without a meld, the message evidently got across. 

_yes_

Spock rotated his head to the side to get a better angle for the kiss, then reached down with his hand to line up their erections, using the copious amounts of pre-ejaculate they had both produced to lubricate the way. He began a languid thrusting against Jim, who responded by lifting trembling arms up to rest his hands on Spock’s shoulders, straining his own head up to deepen the kiss they shared. 

Soon, Spock began to escalate his movements, thrusting with more force against Jim, who moaned into their kiss, the exhale into Spock’s mouth a delicious counterpoint. Spock wanted to swallow it down, as if doing so would preserve some part of Jim within himself. After many more minutes of this, Spock felt the telltale tightening in his scrotum that signaled he was close to climax; Jim, apparently, was close too, for he pulled his head away and rested it against his pillow, eyes closed and breath held. Spock lowered his head until he was resting his forehead against the pillow beside Jim and, with one final thrust, felt his seed spill out, warm over his hand and against Jim’s belly. Jim’s own orgasm followed close behind, and when Spock raised his head to watch his face, he was biting his bottom lip so hard he thought it might bleed; Spock illogically wished to see that.

Spock lowered himself to the side, and Jim turned his head to catch his lips in one, final kiss. 

_needed that_

“Indeed.”

\----

Spock woke in the morning to find himself alone in the bed; he could hear the shower running in the adjacent bathroom, and eventually sat up, scanning the room for his clothes. Before he could get out of the bed, the bathroom door opened, and Jim came out, a towel around his hips. 

“You appear to have gotten your strength back,” Spock noted.

Jim smiled. “I still feel a bit shaky, but last night was very –“ he paused, at a loss for words.

“Restorative?” Spock suggested.

“Yes,” Jim agreed. “Never let it be said that a good night’s –“

“Sleep,” Spock supplied.

“…won’t do a man some real good,” Jim finished with a smile that rapidly faded. 

They looked into each other’s eyes for a minute, then began to speak at once.

“Spock, about last night –“

“Jim, we need to discuss –“

“You go first.”

“I insist that you do. Captain.”

Jim paused when Spock referred to him by his rank, but plowed on after a moment. “Thank you, Spock, for what you did for me last night. You reminded me I was alive, that I could live. I don’t know if you will truly realize what you’ve done for me. I will be forever grateful.”

Spock did not feel reminding Jim that he knew _precisely_ what it had done for him would serve much of a purpose. “I would offer similar sentiments.” 

“But I’m still your commanding officer, and you are still in a relationship with Nyota, and –“

“You need not speak of it further, Jim, for I believe we are of one mind on this. While wholly satisfying and exactly what we each required in the moment, it cannot be repeated.”

Jim looked relieved, and though his feelings on the matter were exactly as he’d stated, Spock couldn’t help a small and illogical stab of disappointment that he ruthlessly suppressed. 

_Kaiidth_ , he thought. _What is is._ In days long past, _t’hy’len_ had spouses and families separate from the warrior bond. It did nothing to lessen their importance to each other, and it would not here.

They were _t’hy’len_ , it was what would be.


	2. Chapter 2

Spock found it… unchallenging… to abide by their agreement never to speak of their encounter. 

Jim made a full recovery, with no evidence that the distress he had shown that night affected him further. Spock, for his part, only felt a dimension had been added that deepened their friendship, and allowed them a more complete understanding of each other than they had enjoyed before. He never felt the need to confess it to Nyota, as it would have unduly hurt her. That their relationship ended shortly afterwards he attributed to coincidence. 

As the command team, Spock and Jim were together very often over the year it took for the Enterprise to be repaired and re-launched, supervising repairs and upgrades. During that time, their friendship grew into one of the closest relationships Spock had ever enjoyed with a person not in his family. They even spent their free time together, playing chess or having dinner, until eventually, Doctor McCoy started teasing that they were like an old married couple.

Three months into the five-year mission, a call came for them to perform a survey of a planet in the Naamans system, preliminary evaluations that were necessary to determine if it would make a suitable world for future colonization. They began their survey on the smaller of two major continents, near the planet’s equator. Indications were that the planet had long ago been prone to much seismic activity, and Starfleet Command wanted the Enterprise to make a first-hand survey.

It took some hours for Spock and the geologists on his team to unload and set up the surveying equipment. They had to take a shuttle to the planet’s surface, since the equipment necessary to perform the evaluation was both complex and delicate. Doctor Renton, the chief geologist aboard ship, had begun to calibrate the machinery when Spock found his attention drawn by an intriguing species of insect as it fluttered past. Similar to an Earth-type butterfly but many times smaller, he followed it with his tricorder extended, taking readings of its anatomy and cell structure, intending to share them with the ship’s entomologist.

As he watched the creature flutter among the delicate flowering plants that grew beside a nearby stand of slender, wispy trees, he was struck by the almost frangible nature of the flora, as if they had evolved to be as light as possible. Before he could take more readings, he was hailed by Doctor Renton. 

“Doctor Renton to Commander Spock, please come in.”

He pulled his communicator out and flipped it open. “Spock here, go ahead, Doctor.”

“Sir, our preliminary readings are concerning.”

“In what way?” Spock still had his eye on the delicate butterfly-like creature, but Renton’s next words got his complete focus.

“The planet’s crust is particularly stratified here and, I fear, unstable. We should plan to leave as soon as we can.”

“Are we in immediate danger?” he asked, already moving back the way he’d come.

“I’m sure we can take the time to – “ 

Renton’s voice was cut short by a strange rumbling sound that Spock heard both through the comm and around him. He quickened his pace. “Doctor Renton?” he called to her as he moved, but the only answer he got was a shocked gasp. He came within sight of the shuttle in time to see, to his horror, the entire shuttle, as well as the surveying equipment and the three people standing beside it, disappear into a sinkhole that suddenly opened up beneath their feet.

Spock slid to a halt beside the area, but had to scramble backwards as the earth in the vicinity began to crumble beneath his feet. “Spock to Enterprise,” he said urgently into his communicator, “the shuttle and three members of the Away Team have fallen into a sinkhole.”

“Acknowledged, sir,” came Chekov’s excited voice.

“Spock,” came Jim’s voice over the comm, “our sensors aren’t picking up anything that seems overly concerning, are you certain –“

“Enerprise,” Spock said urgently, “my team has disappeared. Do you have a lock on them – can they be beamed out?”

“Negative, sir,” Chekov replied. “There is a high concentration of iron in the soil that is making getting a lock difficult from this distance.”

Spock inched closer to the edge of the cave-in and peered down; there appeared to be a series of caves, but he could not determine how deep they were. He could make out the front end of the shuttle, its running lights still on, but no sign of his team.

“We’re arranging a search and rescue team to send down to you. Meanwhile, Spock, we’ll beam you to safety,” Jim advised. 

“Negative, Captain. I must stay here with my staff.”

“Understood, but don’t do anything stupid.”

Spock raised an eyebrow as if Jim were standing right in front of him; if only the Captain could see his withering look.

A faint sound from somewhere behind him got his attention, and Spock spun around. Had he heard a cry for help? Walking towards where the sound was emanating, he kept his tricorder outstretched to search for life signs.

“Doctor Renton!” Spock called as loudly as he could, but the sound he’d heard was not repeated. 

Suddenly, he felt a rumbling beneath his feet. He tried to jump aside, but the ground beneath him began to tremble and fall away, as if he was standing on the edge of a sand dune. 

“Spock! What’s happening?” came Jim’s voice.

“Captain,” he managed to respond, “I believe there is another sink hole opening –“ his words were cut off as the ground gave way beneath his feet and he felt himself sliding down, along with a large mass of earth and rocks, into an underground cavern, the bottom of which he could not see. He landed on his back with jarring and painful suddenness and lay there, stunned, for a split second, before the remaining earth that had been dislodged by the cave-in completely covered him, cutting off his air. Desperately, he clawed at the soil and rock that had fallen around him, but to no avail – more and more of it kept coming at him. Finally, the crushing weight of the earth pressing on his torso and the dwindling supply of air around him combined to overcome him and he did not have even a moment to contemplate his regrets before blackness took him.

\----

Awareness returned very slowly – in discrete snippets that he would take the time to be fascinated by if he didn’t find them so confusing. 

_Spock!_

_Don’t do this, dammit._

_Please don’t do this._

Regardless of his will to respond to the prompting, he found he could not compel himself to answer.

_Think he’s coming out of it._

_About time._

_Damn hobgoblin’s gonna be the end of me!_

When Spock opened his eyes, he found himself in the stark, white confines of a treatment room in the ship’s medical bay. Turning his head to the side, he could discern Doctor McCoy conversing with a young nurse, though he could not hear what they were saying. 

“Look who’s up then,” McCoy said, coming over to wave a medical tricorder over Spock’s supine form. “You are a sight for these sore eyes.”

Spock raised an eyebrow, but if the worry lines around the doctor’s eyes were any indication, he was telling the truth. Still: “If your eyes are giving you discomfort, Doctor, I would encourage you to seek treatment from the ship’s ophthalmologist.”

“Smartass Vulcan. Your vitals look good. How do you feel?”

Spock did a quick self-assessment. “I am operating at peak efficiency.”

McCoy glanced up at him over the tricorder. “So, these Vulcan healing trances… were you going to share that bit of information with your ship’s CMO?”

Spock was surprised. “It is a basic fact of Vulcan biology; when the body is very gravely injured, Vulcans enter into a deep trance that is revitalizing to our tissues and systems.”

“And since you Vulcans are so damned tight lipped, there’s almost none of it in the medical texts! You realize we thought you were dead, don’t you? It was a near thing for the ship’s coroner.”

Spock felt a stab of dismay. “I did not. I apologize, but I did not know that such a fact had been omitted from the public record. I will endeavor to correct it.” He tried to sit up, but McCoy seemed to take pleasure in the act of pushing him down more forcefully than was strictly necessary.

“There will be time for that later.” The doctor once again hefted his tricorder. “Now let me make sure you’re really OK.”

“Doctor, surely the detailed readouts of the biobed provide the data you need to ascertain my state of health. I assure you, I feel perfectly fine.”

McCoy gave him a glare and Spock lay there until the good doctor was satisfied. “Well, there’s nothing else for it – I have no choice but to release you.” 

Spock sat up again.

“But I’m putting you on restricted duty for the next two days.” 

Spock opened his mouth to protest, but McCoy interrupted him. “I don’t care if you’re feeling ‘adequate’ or ‘acceptable’ or whatever word you want to use to underplay it, but you almost died, Spock, and you will rest for another 48 hours and that’s an order.”

“Very well,” Spock sighed.

But McCoy wasn’t done grousing. He kept muttering to himself as he gathered up his equipment and a tray of hyposprays he’d not had the opportunity to use. “Who ever heard… such a thing… healing trance. Damn hobgoblin biology…” Spock could still hear him for some minutes after he’d left the room.

A few minutes later, the nurse brought him some clothes to change into – uniform pants and standard-issue black undershirt –and he made his way to his quarters. His internal body clock had already informed him of the time that had passed, but in the week he’d been in the trance, he surmised much paperwork had accumulated, and so he sat at his desk and began to work through it determinedly. He was relieved to learn that none of the Away Team had been more seriously injured than a few broken bones and contusions, and a report on the planet’s status – the ground was merely a thin shell above an intricate array of underground caverns – made it a wholly unsuitable place for colonization.

He was halfway through his own report on the mission when the door to his quarters beeped. 

“Enter,” he called, and turned in his seat. Standing in the doorway was Captain Kirk, face carefully neutral, but hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Jim, may I help you?”

Jim walked into the room stiffly and stood inside the door just far enough to allow the sensors to close it behind him. “I see you are recovered?” he said.

“I am quite well.” Spock had, by now, become adept at reading most human body language, but Jim’s manner was confounding; he was smiling, but his eyes were stony.

“Quite well. That’s good to hear.”

“I am pleased to have learned the others on the Away Team survived with little serious injury,” Spock said, wondering at his sudden need to fill the silence between Jim’s speeches with statements of known facts. 

“Yes, it’s a testament to their training. Your Science staff are very professional, you are to be commended, Commander.”

 _Commander_ was it? Spock got up from his desk and stood at attention. “ _Captain_ , I am unsure what has displeased you, but your manner would suggest –“

“My _manner_ … Spock, you almost died.”

“Indeed, I think I did not.”

“Your life signs indicated otherwise.”

“Federation personal sensor equipment is clearly not sensitive enough for a Vulcan’s physiology. I have already worked out a way to re-calibrate my own personal device so as not to repeat the error.”

“Re-calibrate? Spock, do you not see what this – _I thought you were dead_!” Jim took a step forward, followed by another and another. At this close range, Spock could see a character in his eyes, a degree of anguish he had not observed before.

“Jim, I –“

Jim grabbed Spock’s biceps with his hands and squeezed; despite the layer of clothing he wore, Spock could feel his friend’s roiling thoughts and emotions punch through to his mind as soon as he made contact. A sense of fear and loss so profound it stole his breath was followed by a tumble of sudden thoughts.

_how can he be so calm_  
kill him myself  
can’t even think about – 

The thoughts were strong enough to be shouts as Jim stepped closer into Spock’s personal space and caught his lips in a demanding kiss. He opened his mouth to protest, but Jim only pressed the advantage, shoving his own tongue inside Spock’s mouth and plundering as if it were some invader. Spock took an involuntary step back and stumbled, but Jim’s hands were around his back in an instant, supporting him and pulling him closer. 

_Jim!_ was his wordless – what, protest, statement, censure? He could hardly tell. As had happened upon Jim’s recovery from his coma, Spock found the massive onslaught of Jim’s emotions so strong they nearly swamped his mental shields. He attempted to shore them up, pushing to erect them in a stronger way, but at one, silent entreaty from his friend he desisted. 

_please_

The word was a plea, an imprecation, his tone filled with so much loss and want and need that Spock surrendered to the mass of desperate, grasping human who held him in his arms. 

Spock pulled his head back to catch his breath. “Yes,” he said as Jim pressed his lips against his throat, sucking a mark against the pulse point there and then licking over the spot soothingly. “Yes,” he repeated, with the sudden and surprising knowledge that the sentiment might not be his alone.

Ignoring it, Spock raised his hands and buried them in Jim’s soft hair, his fingertips splayed, pressing, pulling him closer. He felt Jim’s hands moving underneath his shirts, fingers pulling, grasping him closer with almost bruising force. Again Spock gasped and again, he murmured, “Yes.” This time, he was certain the word was coming from them both. 

Jim, meanwhile, had slowly dropped to his knees before Spock, and was looking up at him with eyes so large and filled with desire that the pupils had almost obliterated the pale blue irises. Spock reached out to him, but Jim pulled away, hands traveling from Spock’s torso to the waistband of his pants. There was a question in the blue eyes, and again an unspoken request, _please_.

Jim undid Spock’s trousers swiftly, pushing them to pool around his feet unnoticed. Leaning forward, he rested his face in the crook between Spock’s thigh and groin. 

_do want_

Spock felt Jim’s thought at the very center of his mind, reverberant and insistent, but again Jim looked up at him, as if for guidance or permission. This time, Spock’s murmured “Yes” was his own.

Jim leaned forward fractionally, his open mouth breathing moistly over Spock’s rapidly-filling penis, a light brush of teeth over the weeping head. Spock felt slightly dizzy and closed his eyes, letting his head fall back as he gave in to the sensations. Jim buried his face in Spock’s crotch, breathing in his scent deeply, and when he finally reached up to pull Spock’s briefs down, Spock gave an involuntary shudder as skin finally touched skin. 

_want_  
need  
wantyouneedyou 

Jim ran his fingertips up and down Spock’s erect shaft, lightly, ghostingly, concentrating his attention on it as if discovering it for the first time. He opened his eyes and watched as, with two fingertips, Jim gently guided it to his open mouth. Jim closed his eyes as he wrapped his lips firmly around the head, sucking it tentatively at first, tongue swirling lightly at the tip, the sensations making Spock groan and his toes curl.

After a moment, Jim took the shaft of Spock’s penis more firmly in hand, his mouth creating suction so mind-blowingly perfect Spock momentarily lost all will to think or move. All he knew was this wet, hot sensation, and he groaned yet again. In response, Jim began to move, taking Spock’s length further and further into his exquisite mouth. Spock had to look away – the image of Jim’s mouth stretched by the girth of his engorged penis too much, the slurping sounds he was making bordering on obscene. He let his head fall back again and stared at the ceiling. Then Jim began to move. 

All thought and reason left him as he realized the tip of his penis was bumping against the back of Jim’s throat. He dropped what remained of his shields and let Jim’s emotions fill him up.

Lust. He felt lust and longing, a touch of fear and a hint of a loneliness so profound and deep it seemed bottomless. But that was only a fleeting impression. The lust and desire began to overtake them both as Spock felt his testicles tightening in the telltale sign that he was about to reach his climax. 

“Jim I,” Spock began, his voice was barely audible. He cleared his throat. “I must warn you–”

In response, Jim shook his head, glancing up at Spock with eyes that were heavy-lidded with desire.

_yeah_  
wantyouneedyou  
want only this  
only you 

The emotion pouring into Spock from Jim was nearly incapacitating as Spock struggled to maintain control over his physical actions. Here was Jim before him, wanting him, _taking him,_ and the passion he felt, the lust and need, filled him to overflowing. He cried out, dropped his hands to rest on Jim’s head, fingertips digging into the soft scalp. He tried but failed to contain himself, and soon his hips were pumping into Jim, who made choking sounds as he struggled to adjust. Jim put both his hands on Spock’s hips to steady him; Spock slowed but did not stop – he was beyond the ability to do so. 

_wantyouneedyou_  
only you  
only you  
only you 

Spock looked down and saw that Jim had managed to take in the whole of Spock’s length, and he could feel the head of his penis hit the back of Jim’s throat, which had relaxed somewhat to accommodate. The sight verged on too much and Spock was forced to close his eyes. A moment later, he felt the first, hot spurt of his semen issue from his body. He cried out once more, held Jim’s head against his groin for a moment that was simultaneously too long and not long enough. Another moment later he was spent, and a sudden trembling in his legs threatened to bring him to his knees. 

He must have made some small sound of distress, because Jim was suddenly beside him, easing him into a sitting position on his desk, his arm around Spock’s shoulders. Spock was shuddering from the aftereffects of his climax and from the remnants of Jim’s emotions bleeding through into his mind.

_shit, something’s wrong_  
you ok?  
did I hurt you 

With an effort, Spock pulled almost violently away from Jim and all at once the strong emotions and the thoughts he felt ceased. Spock took a shuddering breath, as he tried to center himself, to get his emotions under some sort of control. 

Jim held his hands up and away from him, a bewildered look on his face. “Spock?”

“Jim, I –“ Spock found he could not control his body; he did not know if the shaking in his limbs was from his release or from the emotional transference. 

“Here, come here,” Jim said. With gentle hands, he tried to help Spock to his feet, but Spock pulled away; Jim settled of pulling his pants up for him. 

“I am sorry, I -” Spock kept repeating as walked slowly toward his bed. 

“It’s OK,” Jim kept answering, hovering beside Spock but not touching him.

Minutes later, Spock sat with his back against the pillows in a half-seated position against the backboard of his bed; Jim handed him a cup of hot tea and took a seat at the foot of the bed, an unreadable expression on his face.

“I apologize for my reaction,” Spock said at length.

“Don’t be. I think it’s me who should apologize – you’re still recovering from your injuries.”

“Just because your initial approach was assertive, it does not follow that it was not wanted,” Spock pointed out.

“It was wrong.”

“You were… overwrought.”

“You make me sound like a hysterical schoolgirl. It was unprofessional, and it won’t happen again.” 

Jim stood and straightened out his uniform shirts, then turned to go, pausing just inside the door. “But when you died – or… almost died, whatever – I nearly lost my mind, Spock. I felt like a piece of me had been yanked away that I would never get back, do you know what I mean?”

Spock did know what he meant, but before he could open his mouth to reply, Jim had gone.


	3. Chapter 3

The next several weeks were trying for Spock, as, despite Jim’s emotional revelation, the captain kept his distance from him. Spock was not sure if it was because of embarrassment or Jim’s perception that he had acted unprofessionally, but despite Spock’s assertion that there had been no transgression, there was a palpable rift between them. 

Spock felt the absence of Jim’s companionship, but he had his own feelings on the situation to sort out, and thought that perhaps it was just as well. He meditated long and often, but still could not resolve within himself his position on the matter. There was a part of him that had not only responded to what had happened between them, but had allowed it to occur. He now knew that, although Jim had an ability to affect Spock’s mental shields with the strength of his emotions (which was something Spock knew he should be alarmed by but chose not to be), he secretly welcomed the experience. He did not know what that revealed about himself. And he could not discuss “getting past” the incident with his friend until he could sort it out in his own mind. The incontrovertible fact was that on a certain level, Spock enjoyed experiencing Jim’s emotions, as if it was some sort of vicarious thrill he was receiving. If Jim was in error, where did that put _him_?

Days grew into weeks, and the repetition of life on board the ship made his misgivings fade into the background. But still, he regretted the absence of the closeness he and Jim once had and could not seem to get back. Gone were their near-nightly chess games, as well as the casual meals they would take together after their shifts were over.

It was on such a routine day – routinely lonely, Spock felt – that they received a distress call from the Terran colony on Antares V. The communication was garbled and weak, but what Lt. Uhura could discern was that there was a medical emergency on the planet and many had died. They informed Starfleet HQ of the situation even as they set course for Starbase 11 to pick up additional medical supplies and personnel.

They were at the colony within three days, the Captain eager to get there to offer aid as quickly as they could. There was something different about Jim’s manner as they made the journey, a sense of frantic urgency that began as soon as the distress call was intercepted, and seemed to grow more evident the longer they took to get there. Jim was tense, anxious, and impatient, snapping at the bridge crew at times, and uncharacteristically introverted at others. Spock would normally have taken a moment to mention it to him, to offer what assistance he may, but given the situation between them, he hesitated. If it became clear the captain was emotionally compromised he would of course intervene, but unless it did, he would hold his tongue.

After unsuccessfully hailing the colony’s leadership multiple times when they arrived, Lt. Uhura was finally able to raise someone. The image she transferred to the main viewscreen resolved into that of a boy who appeared to be about thirteen. The signal was coming from a small medical clinic on the outskirts of the colony’s southern-most reaches. 

_”He-hello?”_ he said.

“This is the USS Enterprise – who am I addressing?” Jim said, taking over the communication with a sense of gentleness Spock had not yet seen in his captain.

 _”Talen Rose,”_ the boy answered. The image began to flicker and fuzz with interference.

“What is the source of the interference, Lieutenant?” Spock asked.

“It isn’t being jammed or anything, Commander,” she answered. “The signal’s just very weak. Perhaps a power issue?

“Talen,” Jim continued. “Are there any other people around there with you? Any adults?”

 _”There are a few, but they’re real sick. Everyone’s sick. And everyone’s dying. All the doctors and nurses are dead.”_ The boy was on the verge of tears.

Jim nodded and Spock could see the muscles in his jaw bunching as he ground his teeth together. “I’m real sorry about that, Talen, but we’re here to help now. Just calm down, OK?”

Talen nodded, sniffling and wiping his nose on his sleeve. 

“Doctor McCoy,” Kirk said, muting the communication as he hailed the doctor. “I want a Medical Response Team ready in fifteen minutes in Transporter Room 3.”

“Copy, Jim.”

“Spock and I will meet you down there, Kirk out.” He looked up on the view screen and smiled at the boy. “We’ll be there soon, Talen. You just sit tight, OK?

Fifteen minutes later, Spock stood with the rest of the lead MRT as they all donned Level 4 biohazard gear, at McCoy’s insistence. McCoy was providing detailed instructions to the remaining three teams as to the protocols they should follow upon arrival. Spock watched Jim, who stood nearby, listening, but pensively chewing on a thumbnail.

“Captain, you are discomfited by the mission?”

“What?” he startled, then gave Spock a grim smile. “No, just… caught up in my thoughts is all.”

They were ready to go minutes later, and the transporter technician beamed them down near the location from where Talen had been transmitting.

To say the colony appeared to be deserted was to undersell it. There was literally no sound in the streets; the lack of wind was eerie to the point of ridiculousness, a point made by one of the nurses. Spock, who had no cultural bias or predilection towards being spooked as his human colleagues did, was nevertheless prone to agree. The silence and utter lack of movement contributed to making them all feel more on edge than such a situation would normally.

As they moved towards the medical clinic at the far end of the road, members of the team fanned out and explored some of the houses along the way; they reported finding no one alive. The people they did encounter were dead, lying in their beds. Some were even sitting at their tables, as if they had expired while eating their dinners; indeed, the rotting remains of their meals were still on their plates. 

Spock imagined that the stench in the place must be overwhelming, especially to a Vulcan, whose senses were so much more acute than a human’s, but luckily the decontamination suits blocked out any of that, and he found himself to be very grateful for Doctor McCoy’s precautions.

Spock was in the lead of the small group of five that approached the medical clinic, and he pushed open the automatic doors that, due to power loss, were not functional. Their group consisted of himself, the captain, McCoy and two nurses. Spock picked up the large medical case he’d been asked to carry and followed them all inside. 

“Talen!” Jim called out, his voice affecting a friendly tone despite the grimness on his face. “It’s Captain Kirk, kiddo, come on out so we can see you.”

There was the sound of approaching footsteps and the boy appeared from some inner room. He was pale, clearly ill, his eyes sporting dark circles in a drawn and wan face. His skin had a sheen of sweat on it, and his eyes were feverish. Nevertheless, he stood upright on his own and beckoned them to come inside. As they reached him, the boy faltered, and Jim caught him in his arms.

“I’m sorry – being a stupid baby,” Spock heard the boy mutter.

“Not at all,” Jim reassured him with a gentle voice that Spock didn’t think he’d heard from his friend before. “You got us here, didn’t you? Now, tell us – are there any other sick people here?”

Talen gestured with his arm and Jim set him back on his feet, letting the boy lead them to a treatment ward in the back. There they found a dozen people in various stages of illness. Spock heard McCoy curse softly under his breath and then set to work along with the nurses; Jim left Talen among the other patients for the doctor to evaluate, then stood up beside Spock, observing.

Feeling inadequate to help with the sick, Spock turned to Jim. “I believe I will search for additional survivors elsewhere in the building,” he said.

“Good idea, I’ll come with you,” Jim replied.

They made a systematic search of the remainder of the wing they were in, sadly finding no other survivors. But they did find the computer terminals that the medical staff was likely to have used. Spock sat down in front of one of them to try to find information about the plague affecting the colonists, anything the doctors may have gathered that might assist Doctor McCoy in finding a treatment and cure.

Spock’s progress was slow due to the gloves he was wearing, and his concentration on the task at hand made him lose track of Jim’s position in the room. Jim had wandered over to the windows and was looking out on the small town, when he made a small, shocked gasp that called Spock’s attention to him.

“Captain?”

Jim did not respond, instead rushing from the room and out of the clinic. Spock stood and went to the window to see what Jim had seen; lying on the lawn in front of the building was a young woman of perhaps 20. Within moments, she was joined by Jim, who knelt beside her and attempted to provide aid. From here, it was clear that she was in some sort of respiratory distress, and Jim turned to look at Spock, a pleading look in his eyes. Their eyes locked, and Spock turned from the window and left the room.

He stopped at the treatment room where they had left McCoy and the other medical staff. “Please, Doctor, your assistance is required,” Spock said urgently, racing from the room without waiting for McCoy to acknowledge him. Nonetheless, the Doctor was soon on Spock’s heels and they rushed to the front of the building to find – exactly what Spock ought to have expected, yet what he dreaded most.

Jim was bent over the young woman, the mask removed from his biohazard suit, administering CPR to her now-unconscious form. He was performing rescue breathing when McCoy and Spock reached him. McCoy took the captain by the shoulders and pulled him off the young woman. 

“Are you out of your damn mind? We don’t know what kind of disease we’re dealing with!”

Jim’s eyes were wide with concern, but Spock saw immediately it was not for himself. “She – she stopped breathing, Bones. Save her. You have to save her.”

Shaking his head and cursing under his breath, McCoy saw to the young woman, who he quickly stabilized.

Jim nearly fell over with relief when McCoy reported he’d found her pulse, turning to look at Spock and shaking his head. “That was close,” he said, a worried smile on his face.

Spock moved to stand beside Jim, gazing at him, dumbfounded. “You removed your headgear,” he said, unable, in his shock at the captain’s behavior, to do anything but state the very obvious.

“I – she was going to die. I did what I had to do.”

“She… you…” Spock was very nearly speechless; he took a moment to compose himself. “There is no telling how virulent this disease is, Jim, but all evidence points to ‘severe.’ You’ve endangered your life.”

“But I saved hers,” Jim replied stubbornly, and Spock saw that to him that was all that mattered.

\----

It was relatively quick work to assess and transfer the remaining colonists in the town to the Enterprise – there were only 98 of them left in this particular settlement, which had previously numbered more than 1,000. Only half of those could be accommodated in the medical bay, so Spock supervised the conversion of a nearby rec room into a quarantine area for the rest. Twenty of them died of respiratory failure the first night, despite the valiant efforts of McCoy’s tireless staff. 

Doctor McCoy himself worked through the night just trying to isolate the virus in order to study its pathology. Aside from the town they had visited, there were three other settlements nearby, and the clock was ticking for them to find not only a treatment but a vaccine to protect the nearly 5,000 other inhabitants of the planet.

Jim had, without question, contracted the disease. As Spock presented the mission status to him the following morning, he was showing signs of illness – an occasional violent cough that was no less alarming for its infrequency, coupled with an obviously febrile state. Spock paused in the middle of delivering his report, politely waiting for one of the coughing fits to pass.

“Carry on, Spock,” Jim prompted him, when he had caught his breath.

“Forgive me, Captain, but you are unwell. Surely you should be resting.”

Jim had been sitting on his biobed with his back against the wall, still clad in his uniform; he pushed off the wall and jumped to the floor, landing lightly, belying his obviously less-than-healthy state. “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” he said and began to pace the small, private room he’d been assigned; the containment field that separated them hummed lightly as counterpoint to their conversation. 

Spock straightened his spine, refusing to react in any other way. “As you wish. I have sent to your PADD the latest reports from medical on the disease, including projected mortality rates among the colonists on board.”

Jim picked up the PADD from where he’d left it on the bed and scanned the report. “So many of them will die over the next two days?”

“Indeed. This virus has an infectivity rate of 93.5%, and a mortality rate of 90.2%. It is unusually potent.”

Jim began to pace the small room. “And when does Bones expect to be able to synthesize a treatment or vaccine?”

“A vaccine in perhaps two days.”

“And a treatment?”

“He refuses to provide a timeline at this early stage.”

“But if you had to make a guess?”

“Vulcans do not guess.”

“If I insist?”

“No less than five days, Captain.”

“What is the usual progression?”

“From the reports available, an average of four days from time of exposure to death.”

Jim paused in his pacing; when he spoke again, his voice cracked. “And…” he cleared his throat. “And what are the projections for the spread of the disease across the remaining settlements?”

“Indications are that it has already spread. Medical facilities in the other settlements are reporting new cases hourly.”

Jim’s shoulders were bowed, his head bent over the PADD. “What is this other report?” he asked quietly.

“The list of those colonists who expired overnight.”

“Do I want to read it?”

“You do not. Half of those who died were children.” 

Jim gripped the PADD so hard Spock thought it might crack. “Talen?”

“The boy still lives. However, the young woman on whom you performed CPR did not survive.”

Jim turned to face him; his eyes on Spock’s were filled with a kind of anguish and guilt Spock had only ever seen staring back at him from his own mirror after the destruction of Vulcan. “So I did it for nothing?”

Spock had no answer.

\----

Spock split his time between conferences with the planet’s leaders and Doctor McCoy’s research lab, where he lent whatever aid he could in their efforts to isolate and combat the deadly virus. He left Sulu in charge on the bridge, and supervised the ship’s other administrative tasks from his quarters when he was supposed to have been sleeping.

When he arrived at the quarantined area in the medical bay late that night to report to Jim on the isolation of the virus, he learned that the Captain had gathered together the six children from the colony who still survived into a small ward, and was personally seeing to their supervision. He found Jim seated on one of the beds where two of his smaller charges sat propped up beside him, and he was reading to them from an illustrated story on his PADD. 

“I see you are making yourself useful,” Spock remarked when he had finished the story, and tucked the children in. Jim walked quietly over to stand near Spock at the doorway; Spock noticed that he had changed into the loose-fitting scrubs that were standard issue for the patients in sickbay, and was barefoot.

“Gotta look after the little ones, Spock. They don’t have anyone else,” Jim said, his eyes dulled by fever.

“It is very commendable of you.”

Jim could not hold Spock’s gaze. “They get scared so easily,” he muttered.

“Doctor McCoy has isolated the virus.”

“That mean he’s close to a cure?”

“The timetable stands,” Spock told him with regret.

“Oh. How’s the ship?”

“All crew are performing admirably, Captain.”

Jim nodded, and Spock found the ensuing silence uncomfortable. “How do you feel?” he asked at last, flinching internally at the inanity – the _humanity_ – of the question but not able to stop himself. Jim looked ill, so it would follow that he would feel ill, but something in Spock stopped him from making the observation in that clinical, Vulcan way. He did not stop to think why. 

“Fine.”

“’Fine’ has…”

“…variable definitions,” Jim interrupted him. “So you’re fond of reminding me. But I won’t tell you the truth anyway, Spock. I’m fine.”

“Curious. Why would you not tell the truth?”

“Personal truths are for dire times, Spock.”

“You would not classify this as such a time?”

Jim’s smile was almost convincing. “Nah.”

\---- 

When next Spock was able to visit the medical bay, it was not until late the following night. The ward where Jim had been caring for the children was much more subdued than it had been before; two of the children, including the boy Talen who had led them to their first group of survivors, had been intubated, respiration machines keeping them alive. 

Jim sat against the wall cradling another of the children in his arms, a girl of no more than six years of age. He shifted when he noticed Spock’s arrival, nodding in greeting; the girl frowned in her sleep and twitched, but did not wake.

With no other furniture in sight nearby, Spock took a seat on the floor against the same wall Jim leaned against, beside the doorway to the ward; the light hum of the containment field that separated them was almost soothing.

“One of the boys died. Nathan,” Jim said, his voice low; Spock had already noted the empty bed. He also now noticed that Jim’s breathing was labored and wet-sounding, his face very pale and his hairline drenched from perspiration.

“That is regrettable.”

“He was so brave, you know? But there was nothing they could do – this little one’s his sister, Janie.” The young girl in his arms moaned in her sleep, and Jim held her closer, tutting wordlessly into her ear to soothe her.

“Doctor McCoy has made great progress in the search for a vaccine,” Spock reported.

“Really? That’ll prevent a lot of suffering.” Jim nodded, accepting the report. 

Spock did not mention the lack of progress on finding a treatment for those already afflicted with the disease; it had proven to be resistant to all anti-viral protocols. They were nearly out of time to find a cure for any of the colonists; Jim too, was without a doubt in danger. Spock put those thoughts out of his mind in favor of holding a positive outlook, as McCoy was looking into using engineering nanoparticles to target the virus specifically, though it had proven to be trickier than anyone had anticipated.

“I’ve been trying to keep their spirits up, but it’s getting hard.”

“What about your spirits, Jim?”

“They’re not… that’s not an important consideration.”

Spock would beg to differ, but he said nothing more about it. “Starfleet Command is sending a medical aid vessel – the _Florence Nightingale_ will arrive by 13:45 ship’s time tomorrow.”

“That should help with the vaccine distribution,” Jim replied. 

They discussed the plan for it that Spock had drafted earlier in the evening, after he’d spoken with the _Nightingale_ ’s captain. At length, Jim began to show obvious signs of fatigue, and Spock commented that he should go. “You need to rest, Captain.” 

“Feel like I’ve been doing nothing but resting,” Jim said quietly. He shifted his position again as the child in his arms now seemed to have fallen into a deeper sleep, his right hand resting on the floor to prop himself up. “Will you stay here with me a while longer?” he asked quietly.

Spock was reminded of another time spent separated from his _t’hy’la_ by a thin yet daunting barrier and nodded, even though Jim could not see it. He shifted so that he, too, was leaning against the wall, his hand resting on the floor not two inches from Jim’s. All memory of their recent rift was forgotten.

“I will.”

\----

The shrill alarm from a biobed’s monitors brought Spock out of the meditative trance he was in and his eyes snapped open. Inside the children’s ward, one of the patients was in cardiac arrest, and Spock could see Jim frantically trying to revive the boy. 

Spock rose; from here, he could see that the child’s readings were alarming. Beyond, out in the main part of the sickbay, Spock could see that a doctor and nurse had rushed over; they moved as quickly as they could to don the protective gear they would need in order to safely enter the ward. 

Spock took a step forward, watching as Jim began CPR to save the child; the young girl he had been cradling earlier – Janie – sat on a nearby bed, tears on her face and mouth trembling. 

“What are you doing?” Jim called frantically to the medical personnel. “Come and help me!” He bent over the young boy and began to administer rescue breathing, but from where he was standing, Spock saw it was doing little good. 

“What USE is all of this equipment? Are you people even TRYING?”

Spock could see that the excitement was having a negative effect on Jim, whose breathing had become more labored. 

“They’re just _kids_. Don’t you... can’t you…” Jim spluttered to a stop as a coughing fit overtook him, stealing his breath. His face turned an alarming shade and he went down, hard, landing on the floor and sitting there, eyes wide as he struggled to breathe.

“Captain!” Spock called to him, but Jim did not appear to hear them. 

Little Janie was now openly sobbing.

“What in the name of Blazes is goin’ on out here?” Spock looked over and saw Doctor McCoy’s tall form striding angrily toward them all from down the hall that led to the medical labs. 

Spock turned his head; inside the isolation ward, Jim was lying on his side, gasping for air, his eyes screwed shut.

Spock saw that the doctor had managed to get her suit on, and was just beginning to seal her hood over the facemask. He calculated that completing that task and then waiting for the airlock to fully engage would delay her entry into the room a further 1.3 minutes. Something else had to be done.

Moving quickly, Spock strode over to the airlock, pushed roughly past the doctor and nurse and entered through the outer door. He punched the button that sealed it, then hit the one that would activate the inner door. 

“Spock!” McCoy yelled at him from the other side of the airlock, “are you out of your Vulcan mind?” 

“Indeed, no, Doctor. I am merely taking the appropriate emergency actions.”

“You go in there and you’ll be exposed to this plague!”

“I am aware,” Spock told him as the inner door of the airlock hissed open, “but there are more important considerations.” 

Striding over to a cabinet, he pulled down a portable oxygen system and rushed to Jim’s side. Hauling him into a seated position, Spock held the mask to his face. Jim grasped at it frantically, breathing as deeply as he could. Judging that Jim could be left on his own, Spock moved over to assist the child, administering CPR until the doctor and nurse finally gained access to the room and took over for him.

Turning, he ignored McCoy, who stood glaring at him from the other side of the containment field and got down on one knee beside Jim, who looked at him with glazed eyes. 

“Spock,” Jim gasped inside the mask, his breath leaving traces of condensation on the clear plastic, “thank… you…”

Spock took Jim’s arm at the elbow and helped him to his feet and then into a nearby bed. “Lie down. Rest.” 

Jim nodded, closing his eyes. 

\----

Spock’s attempts to manage ship’s operations were thwarted by a supremely annoyed McCoy, who kept him in the children’s ward under quarantine. But when he showed no signs of having contracted the virus twelve hours later, the doctor was force to conclude – and tests confirmed – that Spock’s Vulcan physiology made him immune to the disease. Nevertheless, he found he could not leave Jim’s side; had, in fact, made a promise not to during the long hours of early morning, and so decided to perform his duties from sickbay. 

He asked Nyota to liaise with the crew from the _Nightingale_ and make all the arrangements he couldn’t personally see to. The rest of the medical and sciences staff would assist with the distribution of the vaccine which, as of that morning, had been successfully tested and was on its way to being reproduced in sufficient quantities to inoculate the crews of both ships and the planet’s population, starting with those areas where the plague had already manifested.

Spock worked at one of the medical stations, and looked up as the person in the nearest bed began to stir. He rose and walked over, hand resting on the bed beside Jim’s but not touching. 

“Spock,” Jim wheezed through the oxygen mask that covered the lower half of his face, “you stayed?” 

Spock frowned; Jim’s fever was clearly making him forgetful. “Yes, Jim.”

Jim nodded, slurring, “Tha’s good. I want you here.” He shifted his hand over so that he grasped onto Spock’s wrist with his thumb and forefinger, lightly. “Want you to know,” he said, each phrase delivered breathlessly, “not afraid… this time.” 

Through their contact, Spock could feel the truth in Jim’s statement. He cocked his head to the side and looked into Jim’s eyes. “Are you not?”

“Nuh-uh… you here… it helps…”

_not the worst way to go  
I’ll miss you, though_

Spock fought down his rising alarm and grasped onto Jim’s hand tighter.

“Spock?”

“Yes?”

“Promise you’ll… watch over… th’ kids?”

“I will personally attend to their care.”

Relief poured out of Jim into Spock. “Tha’s good… they’ll need… someone… when they’re scared.”

“Indeed?”

“I know… know how they feel… to be so scared… not right when you’re a kid. Makes you grow up… too soon.”

Spock’s voice was very quiet. “This has been your personal experience,” he concluded.

Jim nodded, his blue eyes on Spock’s filled suddenly with a bright intensity. “It’s time… for personal truths, Spock.”

Spock nearly could not speak around the constriction of his throat. “Are these dire times then, Jim?” 

“I think so.” Jim paused, as if gathering his thoughts. “I was on Tarsus IV,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Spock stiffened; the massacre on Tarsus IV was the stuff of nightmares, and even Vulcans could find no application of logic to explain any of it. 

Jim continued, “I was fourteen – we got away… had to watch over the little ones though… make sure they were safe.” He coughed weakly, his lips covered with spittle he didn’t seem to notice. “So I know… I know what… it’s like to… to be… scared. And alone.”

“Do not speak of it,” Spock said, and rested a hand on his head to soothe him.

_calm_  
so easy to…  
just… let… 

Jim closed his eyes and for a second, Spock thought he had fallen asleep, until the wail of the biobed’s sensors told him otherwise. He stepped back, alarmed, as a suited doctor and two nurses came running over to see what had happened.

Spock stayed out of their way as they strove to save the Captain’s life. In the end, they had to intubate him so that machines could help him to breathe. Assured of his stability, Spock left the ward through the airlock and headed straight for McCoy’s research lab.

“What is the current status of development for the treatment?” Spock demanded as soon as he arrived.

McCoy looked up at him from the neutron microscope he was peering into. “Fabricating the antigen for the nanoparticle’s payload was trickier’n I thought – I need to run a few simulations before –“

“You will use it on the Captain.”

McCoy’s eyebrows bunched together. “I will not!”

Spock felt something click over in his brain, and he took a step forward, looming over the doctor at his work station. His voice was very cold when he said, “You will use it on the Captain, and that is an order.”

McCoy’s answer was just as cold. “Is it, Commander? You know that as CMO, I’m not beholden to you or anyone in the disposition of my duties when it comes to medical treatment. I don’t have to listen to you or anyone –“

“He. Is. Dying,” Spock interrupted.

McCoy closed his mouth with an audible click, and at once Spock saw how exhausted the man was; Spock did not care. “They’re all dying,” McCoy replied.

“He is dying _now._ ”

McCoy’s shoulders slumped. “I know that, damn it! But this thing is completely untested – I’ve got at least two more simulations to run, and that will take hours.”

“Hours that Jim does not have.”

McCoy squeezed the bridge of his nose between two fingers and sighed. “Don’t you see that the treatment could make him worse? It might just wind up killing him faster, Spock.”

“If you test the drug on him, how soon will you know that?”

“An hour, maybe two?”

“But your simulations will take longer?”

“Yes.

“It is logical, therefore, to test its efficacy on the Captain.”

“No, it is not. Damn it, Spock, this is hard enough, don’t tell me how to do my job.”

Spock picked up an empty hypospray ampule from a nearby tray of them and held it out to McCoy on the palm of his hand, a challenge in his eye as he regarded the doctor sitting in front of him. 

"Are you emotionally compromised, Commander?"

"Yes." 

McCoy stared at Spock for nearly a minute before swiping the ampule from Spock’s hand and crossing the room to where the material he’d created sat under a containment hood. When he’d loaded it up with a dose, he inserted it into a hypospray and brought it over to Spock. “If they court martial you for this, I want you to know I’m not testifying on your behalf.”

“So noted,” Spock said, turning on his heel and heading back to the isolation ward.

\----

The treatment was a success. 

Jim began to show signs of improvement within two hours, and was breathing on his own by nightfall. McCoy’s work had saved his life, as well as the remaining children, including Talen and Janie. Of the colonists brought on board, fifty would survive, and those afflicted planetside would also now be saved.

During the three days the captain recuperated in sickbay, Spock spent his off-hours at his bedside, discussing ship’s business with him and playing chess; when a nurse came to tell him he was discharged, Spock was there, and accompanied him back to his room, carrying Jim’s PADD and the few personal possessions he’d amassed while in sickbay for him. It was Spock who keyed in the entry code at Jim’s door, ushering him inside, then ensuring the temperature controls were set exactly so.

Jim watched him with an amused expression. “You know, Spock, you’re gonna have to leave me alone _sometime_. Like, when do you take time to sleep lately, anyway? Mmmph!”

Finally alone with the captain, and assured they were not likely to be disturbed, Spock turned to answer him, but found he could no longer refrain from taking him in his arms and kissing him, crowding him up against the wall and sliding his arms around Jim’s back.

“Spock!” Jim gasped when he was able to part from him for a second, but Spock only lifted a hand to the back of his neck and pulled his face closer. As Jim’s body relaxed, Spock was overcome with a sense of _want_ that, in contrast to their last two liaisons, he knew was coming from within himself. 

He raised his left hand to Jim’s face, caressing, his thumb pressed to the underside of Jim’s jaw. Jim hummed, an expression of pleasure, of desire, and it was enough to open the floodgates that had kept Spock’s emotions in check for the last week. He made a small, desperate moan as his tongue pushed its way inside of Jim’s mouth, seeking, exploring. As if in response, Jim dropped the hands that had been resting on Spock’s chest down and slid them around until they cupped the curve of Spock’s buttocks, pulling him in closer. Spock could feel a growing bulge in Jim’s pants grinding against his hip and with a moan that was nearly a whimper, he pulled away from Jim, took his hand and led him directly to the bedroom.

Spock stopped at the side of the bed and as he turned, Jim was already in his arms. They tumbled onto the bed, Spock on top, straddling Jim’s hips, bent over him, hands in Jim’s hair. Their kissing was forceful, neither one of them submissive, but Spock was on top and so he used it as leverage. He pressed his hips against the erection now tenting the scrubs Jim wore and Jim squirmed beneath him with a moan.

“God, wait,” Jim gasped, pulling his head away and panting.

“I am sorry,” Spock said, sitting up, suddenly mortified – Jim had only just recovered from a massive pulmonary infection, after all, and his lung capacity must not be entirely –

“Just want to feel you,” Jim explained, pawing at Spock’s shirts and pushing them up, trying to remove them. 

Spock pulled them both off one-handed and flung them to the floor, then helped Jim remove the soft t-shirt he wore. Jim settled back, hands outstretched, fingering Spock’s nipples and chest hair, tweaking, pulling. With another desperate moan , Spock lay on top of him, the pressing together of naked flesh causing a sensory overload of desire.

He wasn’t sure when it went from wanting to needing, and Spock would perhaps be able to pinpoint the exact moment later, when he had time to consider it carefully, but as they kissed, as he felt the warmth and the _life_ in the man beneath him, the vibrancy and strength in him, Spock could not help but be reminded of the darkest doubts he felt over the last several days. Without meaning to, without the ability – or was it the will – to stop himself, he lowered his mental shields, welcoming any of the impressions he received from Jim into himself.

 _this_  
this is what would be lost  
you  
you would have  
you GAVE UP!

Spock sat up abruptly, shocked as he realized these thoughts were his own.

“Something wrong?”

“I – I do not know.“ Spock swallowed, and some facts slid into place suddenly. He thought back to his two prior sexual encounters with Jim, recalled how the torrent of Jim’s emotions were so overwhelming they were able to take down his mental shields. Spock had also been disinclined to fight it, in fact, welcoming the onslaught of emotion each time. He had attributed those instances to some defect on his own part, some as yet undiagnosed weakness to be attributed to his human half. He’d meditated on it, did exercises to strengthen his shields, to compensate, to improve himself, so that it would not happen again. 

But this. This desperation, this desire, this _want_ had come from him first. What did it mean?

He looked down to find Jim’s fingers working at the fastenings on his uniform pants, making quick work of them. “You think too much,” Jim said, catching his eye.

“I – oh.” Jim’s hand around his erect penis effectively took his mind off of his present concerns. 

He sat for a minute, still straddling Jim, head thrown back and reveling in the sensations of Jim’s hand expertly bringing him to full hardness. He moaned, pressing his hips forward into Jim’s hand wantonly and enjoying the feel of Jim's callused hand on his most sensitive area. 

“There are way too many clothes here,” Jim said, and Spock had to agree. Moving to the side, he got out of the bed and quickly disrobed, then helped Jim to remove the scrub pants he wore; he wore no underwear. 

“Come here,” Jim ordered, spreading his legs, and Spock resumed his position atop him, their pelvises fitting perfectly together, the sensation of their erect penises rubbing against each other nearly maddening.

They kissed. As they did, Jim’s hands slid up and down Spock’s back, squeezing and kneading, blunt fingernails leaving a frisson of sensation in their wake that made Spock’s nerve endings sing. Eventually, Jim’s right hand traveled farther down, his middle finger tracing a trail down the cleft of Spock’s buttocks until it pressed at the puckered flesh of his anus.

Spock gasped and twitched atop Jim, who smiled up at him and then claimed his mouth with a kiss again. Jim’s finger continued to pet at his opening, teasing lightly, until eventually he pressed it in to the first knuckle. Spock moaned in the back of his throat and stopped kissing Jim, panting.

“Something wrong?” Jim asked. The look in his eyes said he hoped there wasn’t.

“It is nothing, I – do you have supplies?” Spock found himself asking rather ineloquently.

Jim smiled. “In the nightstand,” he said, removing his finger from Spock’s body and turning his torso to the side in order to retrieve them. Spock got up on his knees as Jim retrieved lube and a condom from a drawer, then returned to his supine position. “How’re we doing this?”

Spock took the lube from Jim. “You have been ill. I shall take the more active role,” he said. He coated his left hand with lubricant and reached behind himself, inserting a finger within to prepare the way. 

“That’s really very hot,” Jim said, eyes transfixed. “But I can’t see.”

Spock turned his head to regard him, then took a position on his back next to Jim and spread his legs wide. Jim got up on an elbow and watched as Spock prepped himself, adding a second finger and scissoring them against the resistance, impatient to be ready. 

Jim laid a hand over his and kissed him. “Take your time, wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself,” he said. 

“It does not hurt.”

“Then maybe you’re doin’ it wrong,” Jim purred and inserted the tip of his middle finger between the two already inserted, causing Spock to gasp at the sudden and nearly overwhelming burn. He held his breath, blew it out slowly, and when it was nearly all expelled, Jim began to move his hand over Spock’s forcing the three fingers in and out, making Spock gasp yet again.

Spock removed his own hand, lying back as Jim’s hand took over, his one finger quickly becoming two and then three again, making Spock moan. Through their contact, Spock could feel Jim’s surface thoughts as usual, and allowed them to fill his mind.

_so beautiful_  
I could watch you forever  
like this  
just for me 

Jim’s desire both filled and enveloped him, and soon Spock knew exactly what Jim had pictured in his mind, and found that he wanted it too.

“It is time we, as you humans say, got this show on the road, is it not?” he said, his voice not nearly as strong or suggestive as he would have wished.

Jim smiled down on him and let Spock guide him back into a position lying on his back. He took a moment to put on the condom and apply more lube to himself, then held his arms out to Spock. Spock straddled him yet again, twisting around to grasp the base of Jim’s erect penis and guide it to his anus, his body stiffening as the head breached him. He paused, savoring the sensation, but then bore down as he lowered himself further, inch by inch, until Jim was fully seated within him.

Again Spock paused, closing his eyes to allow his body to adjust. He took a deep breath and let it out again, slowly. He opened his eyes when he felt Jim’s hands on him, resting on Spock’s hips to steady him. Spock leaned forward and rested his hands on Jim’s chest, then began to move his hips up and down, the movement causing Spock’s erect penis to skid lightly along Jim’s stomach, the friction that caused just short of enough.

Perhaps unhappy with the pace Spock was setting, Jim raised his knees, feet against the bed for leverage, and snapped his hips up to meet Spock on his next downward movement, then again, and again, deeper and deeper. The head of Jim’s penis was now effectively stimulating Spock’s prostate on every upward thrust, causing Spock to see stars behind his closed eyelids. He moaned with each delicious contact.

Jim reached down between them and fisted Spock’s penis. “I want you to come for me,” he gasped. 

Spock opened his eyes and looked down at Jim; his blue eyes were again nearly obliterated by the dark pools of his pupils, and Spock could see his own reflection in them, tiny and strange. Jim’s hand on him was rough, rougher than he ever was with himself, the calluses on the palms of his hands scraping against Spock’s overly sensitive skin.

“Come for me,” Jim repeated, hips continuing to piston up into Spock’s body. “Come for me.”

With one last gasp, Spock gave it up, his entire body taut as a bow string as he spilled his seed out over Jim’s hand, onto his stomach and chest. Jim thrust up into him one last time as his own orgasm took him, closing his eyes and making one, sharp cry as he did. 

A moment later, Spock pulled himself gingerly off of Jim, lying beside him on his side as Jim used his discarded scrub pants to clean them both off. He was drifting in the twilit space between waking and sleeping when he became aware of the cold space between them as Jim pulled away.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Spock opened his eyes, confused. “You… are welcome?”

“That was the best pity fuck I’ve ever gotten.”

“I am unfamiliar with that term,” Spock said, tensing slightly.

“Pity fuck? It’s when you’re with someone because you feel bad for them, so you throw them a bone. Heh-heh, bone.” 

“I did not –“

“Sure you did. Why else would you be here?”

“I assure you, it was not out of some obligation I felt towards you.”

“OK,” Jim said, in a tone that communicated to Spock he did not believe him.

Spock quashed a flicker of annoyance and sat up abruptly, choosing his words carefully. “I… am gratified… that our activities served to ease your mind,” he said slowly, because he could not think of another thing to say. He pushed down the confusion and dismay he felt and removed himself from the bed. “You should rest now. Surely Doctor McCoy’s instructions that you ‘take it easy’ did not include this,” he indicated the bed in general, then went in search of his clothes. He pulled on his pants, then his uniform shirt – eschewing the undershirt and boots – and made for the door.

“Spock,” Jim called, and Spock turned to look at him. A brief expression of what appeared to be regret flashed across Jim’s face, and he opened his mouth to speak, but he appeared to change his mind. “Thank you,” he said instead.

Spock could not answer; he was merely grateful there was no one in the corridor to see him make the short walk to his own quarters in such a state of exposure.


	4. Chapter 4

Spock did not fear death. As a Vulcan, he knew that his soul – his _katra_ – would live on, would be housed within the Katric Arc on New Vulcan and commune for eternity with the souls of his ancestors. 

This gave him a measure of peace, and had since he was a child. But he didn’t feel that way when he considered the deaths of those close to him, those who were not Vulcan. Like his mother, or Nyota. Or Jim.

Jim’s death frightened him more than any single thing he had yet experienced, perhaps _because_ he’d already experienced it, and knew its effects on him at a base, emotional level. Spock knew the abject fear and confusion death brought to humans, had felt it for himself, and he could not bear for his _t’hy’la_ to suffer that again. 

Which was why he swore he would end Jim Kirk himself before allowing the Denobist separatists to do it.

Jim and Spock had been their prisoners on Q’raqus IV for 42.3 days. Of those days, Spock was physically tortured a total of 19 times, Jim 15. Whenever they were taken for “treatments” as their captors jokingly called it, they were never together, never personally saw what was happening to the other. But they heard it. Heard the sharp crack of a whip being used; the low, guttural sounds of a man being water boarded; the sizzle of a brand being applied to bare skin; the slick, dull slapping sounds of fists hitting already-bloodied skin. 

Spock could withstand almost any pain; as a Vulcan he was adept at disassociating his consciousness from his body, and could ignore the consequences of the Denobists’ torture while it was occurring. This ability of his was, in fact, the source of much amusement and creativity for his tormentors. But this creativity was by no means the worst the Denobists could do to him. No, the worst was hearing Jim’s tortured screams and not knowing if he would ever see him alive again. 

The first time they were separated and Spock heard what they were doing, his brain filled in grotesque details that his heightened Vulcan senses fed it. When Jim was returned to the dank, tiny cell they shared, it took all of Spock’s emotional control to refrain from weeping with relief. It was short-lived, as Jim was unconscious for many hours afterwards. 

Today, when they brought Jim back and dumped him in an undignified heap on the floor just inside the cell door, Spock crawled over to him, hampered by the discomfort of a very-poorly-healed fractured ankle, and pulled Jim into his lap.

Jim was shirtless and soaking wet, leading Spock to conclude it had been the water boarding again. He had long ago gotten over the outrage of using water thus – such an insult to a man from a desert world – and instead resented it for the abject terror he knew it caused in Jim. Jim sighed at Spock’s touch, and his eyes opened, looking up at Spock wearily yet thankfully. 

“Hey,” he greeted Spock conversationally, as if they were meeting up in the officer’s mess by chance.

“Hey yourself,” Spock replied, deadpan, running his hands over Jim’s body to ascertain any additional damage. Thankfully, there was none; the consequences of Jim’s last “treatment” had been dire, and he had taken more than a day to regain consciousness. Jim began to shiver, and Spock knew it was not just from the water. Laying a hand on his head, Spock initiated a light psychic contact – not as deep as a meld, but effective enough – and siphoned off as much of Jim’s stress and fear as he could take into himself. Jim soon relaxed against him, his eyes drooping. 

“Sleep, _t'hy'la_ , I will be here when you wake,” Spock said soothingly.

“You call me that all the time lately,” Jim commented, closing his eyes.

Spock raised his eyebrows, surprised – he’d not noticed this before – more lapses in his mental control brought on by their mistreatment here. “It is a word of great significance to me,” Spock murmured.

“It means a lot.”

“Indeed, it means –“

“I know what it means. It means… what we are. To each other. T’hy’la.”

_friends, comrades  
you and me against them all  
forever and always_

“Yes,” Spock agreed, pulling Jim closer, “indeed.”

As Jim dozed, Spock reflected on the course of their relationship and felt gratitude that they had regained the closeness they had enjoyed in its earlier stages. In the months that had passed since the incident following Jim’s illness, Spock had at first felt foolish that he had let himself become so emotionally compromised that he had done what he’d done. He had avoided close contact with Jim at first, embarrassed at having misinterpreted the incident, but in time – and in no small part due to the fact they had to work so closely together and the simple force of Jim’s personality – he had gotten past his reservations and settled into what he hoped would be the relationship that was supposed to “define them both,” at least according to his elder counterpart. 

And though he’d misunderstood Jim’s intentions during their few liaisons, he had learned from them, and accepted them for what they were – expressions of their bond as _t'hy'len_ , something to be honored, but holding no more emotional significance than that.

\----

The clanging of the door of their cell woke them both an indeterminate amount of time later – his time sense was the first thing that had failed Spock in this place. He sat cross-legged with Jim’s head pillowed in his lap, and as he came awake, he automatically wrapped his arms protectively around Jim and looked up.

It was Wrothgar, their principle torturer, and he bore a food tray, which was out of character in the extreme. He dropped it to the floor with a disgusted curl of the upper lips of both his mouths and spoke to them in heavily accented Standard, “It is my extreme pleasure to inform you that this will be your last meal.” He kicked the tray lightly toward them with a booted foot and it slid to a stop against Jim, who sat up to face him. “You’ll be executed as spies in the morning.”

“You can’t do that, we’re Federation citizens,” Jim said angrily; Spock was proud that, even after so many weeks, his Captain had not allowed them to break his spirit.

“Federation? Pah!” Wrothgar sneered from both mouths; when he first arrived here, Spock found the combination of upper and lower registers issuing from the mouths of the Q’raqusians to be charming and almost melodic. Now it grated on his nerves. “Your Federation is weak and ineffectual, and Starfleet its lapdog. Do you think your deaths will mean anything to them?”

Jim surged forward, spluttering, but Spock held him back.

_rat bastard  
fucking kill him  
hatehatehatehate_

Wrothgar laughed, highly amused. “I’ll enjoy watching your life drain away, little human,” he said and left. 

When the outer doors clanged shut, Jim slumped to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. “So that’s it, then? We die on this gods-forsaken rock with no one the wiser?”

“It is a blow to the ego,” Spock commented dryly.

“Shut up,” Jim said with a wry grin. “Stop trying to cheer me up.”

“I _attempted_ no such thing.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I succeeded, did I not?”

“You are a wily and mouthy Vulcan.”

“Indeed, I have been told so on many occasions.”

Jim looked Spock in the eyes and the smile left his face. “I’m sorry I got you into this, my friend.”

“I am not. You would not have survived this long without my mitigating presence.”

“Stop harshing my big moment, would you, Spock?”

“You have my apologies.”

Jim turned so that they were both facing the same direction, toward the cell door. He took a deep breath before speaking. “This is really going to happen now, isn’t it?” 

“ _Kai’idth._ ” Spock said.

“You got that right. What’s it mean?”

“In High Vulcan, it means, ‘what is is.’ It means there is no more that can be done. It means that when one has applied one’s intellect, one’s strength, and one’s logic to a problem and is still thwarted, one must accept it.”

“’Shit happens’? That’s your big philosophical reveal at the end of it all?” Jim asked, a tone in his voice that told Spock he was jesting. “At least it sounds nice.” There was a long pause. “I never meant for any of this to happen, Spock. We were supposed to conquer the galaxy together, you and me. I’m sorry.” Jim leaned over and lay his head on Spock’s shoulder.

“Just because we may very well have come to an untimely end, it does not follow that I regret experiencing it with you, Jim. You have been my friend, and your presence is a comfort to me.”

After many minutes, Spock’s back soon tired, and he moved to lean against the stone wall nearby, pulling Jim with him. Jim curled up next to Spock with a shiver, reminding Spock that he was still half-naked. Spock slid an arm around Jim’s back to allow him to get closer, so that they could share their body heat. 

“You’re so warm,” Jim murmured.

Spock made a non-committal sound. 

_I can’t do this_

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.”

_thought I could  
no  
ohgodohgodohgod  
Spock, please  
I can’t lose  
I can’t lose it_

For just a moment, Spock let the assault of pure sorrow and distress that poured off of Jim envelop him, without trying to shield against it. He could not explain why, but the sense of giving in to it was oddly satisfying, like the time he’d vacationed with his mother on Earth as a boy and they’d gone to the beach near Monterey. He’d been knocked off his feet by the waves of the Pacific Ocean and then, as now, there was a strange sense of inevitability to it, a desire to let it take him over, to give in. 

Then, without thinking what it meant to him or to either of them, Spock turned to Jim and cupped his face with a hand. “Do not fret, _t'hy'la_ , please do not,” he said as soothingly as he could, pressing his forehead against Jim’s and projecting calm and comfort to him through their physical bond.

They sat that way for long moments, breathing of each other’s air, until Jim tilted his face upward and caught Spock’s bottom lip in a kiss so tentative Spock wondered if it was even happening. When Jim kissed him again, he pulled away, not wishing to repeat past mistakes, but Jim pulled at his shirt with a curled fist and said, “Please,” in such a plaintive tone, Spock found he could not deny him – or himself – this time.

He tilted his head to the other side and kissed Jim back, a bit harder, a bit stronger. With a sigh, Jim responded, his body losing more of its tension as he lifted his arms and settled them around Spock’s neck. After a time, his movements became more frenzied, his hands pulling at Spock’s clothes desperately until Spock had to break the kiss and take hold of Jim’s arms. He squeezed Jim’s biceps gently, reassuringly, staring into the depths of his eyes. 

Jim’s eyes – how he could lose his mind just staring into them. But now they regarded Spock with a mixture of confusion and trust and, Spock thought, affection. “Be still,” Spock said, putting his arms around Jim and easing them both to the floor. “Be still.” Spock lay beside him and they kissed again.

Eventually, Jim wormed his way atop Spock, hips grinding against him. Spock could feel the hardness there, against his hip, could feel his own erection growing in response. In the weeks they’d been here, they’d resisted this kind of closeness – Spock had resisted it. But Jim’s physical and mental presence was such a welcome weight upon him now that he gave into the wordless need. What had they to lose? And Spock, despite the Vulcan reserve that he had won back so hard over the last months, had need of this comfort as well. 

Spock reached down and palmed Jim’s crotch, felt the flesh stir beneath his hand.

“Yes,” Jim gasped. And _please_ his mind echoed, and Spock squeezed again, none too gently.

“God!” Jim moaned, straining forward, and then his hands were everywhere on Spock, pushing under his shirt, pressing against his sides and his stomach. Spock rose slightly so that his shirt could be removed and with a bit of additional fumbling, they were naked together.

They settled back, and Spock craned his neck forward to catch Jim’s mouth in a kiss, opening his lips to the sweet press of tongue he welcomed so. Jim held his face between his hands, thumbs pressing at the corners of his mouth, and when he pulled back, to look down at him again with those clear, blue eyes, there was no mistaking the affection and ardor there.

“Yes,” Spock said as Jim renewed the thrusting of his hips against Spock; the slide of their erect penises against each other was simultaneously all Spock wanted and not enough. He moved his hands down to clutch at Jim’s buttocks, pulling him closer, increasing the pressure and the friction between them. And still it wasn’t enough.

“Jim,” he said when his mouth was free for the moment, Jim’s mouth sucking a bruise on Spock’s throat. 

“Mmm.”

Spock spread his legs wider, his knees coming up to press against Jim’s flanks. He snapped his own hips up, the cleft between his buttocks pressing against the underside of Jim’s penis, his tight testicles. “Please,” Spock breathed into his ear, and it was his turn to be needy. He tightened the grip of his knees around Jim. “Please.”

Jim pushed himself up a little on his hands, looking down at Spock. “You sure? I mean, it’s not like we have… anything here, Spock.”

“I know, yet...” Spock paused; he had so many conflicting thoughts and emotions in his mind that he was having difficulty parsing them. On the one hand, he had sworn never to allow their friendship to be affected by the unwanted emotion he felt for Jim. On the other, he knew without a doubt that Jim wanted this as much as he did. Furthermore, if they were to die in the morning, at the very least, this one, last act in the face of it was a final gesture of defiance, however illogical he knew that impulse to be. 

“I do not have the appropriate words, Jim, but cannot think of another thing I would want more than to share this last intimacy with you. Please, you will not hurt me, you cannot.”

Jim leaned forward over Spock, gently brushed the overgrown fringe away from his forehead with his finger and then rested his cheek beside Spock’s, and whispered into his ear, “I know what’s been happening, Spock. I know you’ve been… making it easier for me. There is no one I’d rather be with at the end of everything than you.” 

Jim pressed his lips against the tip of Spock’s ear who, with a needy sound, threw his arms around Jim’s neck and they were kissing again.

With a burst of lust tempered by reluctance and a touch of fear Spock could feel him struggle to quash, Jim eased to the side and began to prep Spock with a judicious amount of saliva and care. After many minutes, Spock was being driven nearly out of his mind with want, and pressed down on Jim’s hand with a low and guttural sound. Jim laughed, a bright and wondrous thing in this darkest of places, and Spock watched him with something close to admiration.

Jim levered himself above Spock, pressing his legs up and open. He slicked up his penis as best he could, using a combination of his own pre-ejaculate and saliva, situated his hips just so and, looking into Spock’s eyes the entire time, pressed the head of his penis into Spock.

Spock willed himself to be still, ignoring the drag of not enough lubrication as he bore down. Pulling away slightly, Jim produced more saliva that he pressed against Spock’s anus, and then eased himself further inside, his progress slow and measured, with frequent pauses for the application of more saliva. Eventually, as Spock’s body adjusted and his muscles loosened, he found that Jim had sunk himself in as deeply as he could go. Jim paused then, let his body cover Spock’s chest-to-chest, and kissed him again. Spock reveled in the closeness, the feeling of being filled and surrounded, and couldn’t control the cry that emitted from his throat to be swallowed by Jim’s kiss. 

_needthis  
needyou  
godsoperfect_

Jim’s thoughts, as well, blanketed Spock like a thick cocoon and, setting aside his resolution never to do it again, Spock lowered his mental shields and allowed the whole of Jim’s emotions into himself.

“Are you good?” Jim asked, and Spock couldn’t answer, because at that point, he was too overwhelmed. He merely threw his head back, and took a deep breath, wrapped his legs around Jim’s waist, and pulled him in closer.

Jim thrust shallowly into Spock, gently. Spock lay beneath him, eyes closed and body pliant and boneless, as wave after wave of Jim’s emotions and thoughts poured into him. He felt Jim’s need, and his lust, his despair and anger at their fate, and the ever-present underpinning of fear that Spock was never able to completely eradicate for him. He imagined all of them as plants in his mother’s garden, and he the gardener who would pluck out the weeds and nurture the delicate flowering plants. He pulled the weeds of negative emotion and discarded them, pulled them again as they reappeared, and again. Soon, the weeds dissipated and did not come, and he felt a sort of relief come from Jim, and with it a touch of joy. Spock pictured Jim’s joy as a single peony, the flower full and top-heavy, and he encouraged it, propping it up with stakes, giving it every chance to thrive and grow. 

He was dimly aware that, above him, Jim was on the verge of his climax; Spock felt his own body respond when Jim reached between them and fisted Spock’s erection. When they came, Spock heard himself cry out, but it was not with his own voice; he knew it was Jim’s own pleasure being mirrored back to him. He felt Jim withdraw from his body, felt him rearrange Spock’s limbs and lie down beside him. He felt his own arms placed around Jim’s body, his head pillowed on Jim’s chest, and when he finally fell asleep, the peony in his mind’s eye was in full flower, pale pink and beautiful, bloom thrust up high to meet the nourishing rays of the sun.

\----

Spock woke the following morning before Jim, before the guards even, with a stubborn resolve he had not felt in weeks, a resolve to act. He dressed as quietly as he could then went into a corner of their cell across from Jim and meditated for the first time in days. 

During their imprisonment, Spock had taken time to meditate only when it was a strict necessity for him to maintain mental stability following bouts of torture, either for him or for Jim. He found he needed it more after he’d helped Jim deal with his fear and pain, which was to be expected since Jim’s emotions were so much stronger and uncontrolled than Spock’s own. But given the unpredictable actions of their captors, he could never do it for long, and certainly never to the point where he would have gotten the maximum benefit from it, as he did not want to remove his focus from the crisis at hand for long.

But today was different, today he needed the assurance and equilibrium full meditation would afford. For today, he had decided, he would murder his _t'hy'la_.

When he opened his eyes, Spock saw that Jim was now awake and dressed, sitting across from him in a pose similar to Spock’s and eyeing him pensively. Neither spoke. Neither needed to. After the prior night’s activities, Spock felt an accord with Jim and a clarity about their relationship that he believed Jim felt as well. They would do anything for each other, Spock knew. 

Minutes later, the guards came to take them away. Their feet were bound in chains, and their hands cuffed in front of them and they were led out to the courtyard of the gutted former security building that had been their prison the last few weeks. They blinked up at Q’raqus’s twin suns for the first time since they’d been taken prisoner, were led to a non-descript transport, and shoved inside. The inside of the vehicle was a dull grey metal, with two benches on either side, capable of holding at least a dozen men. They were the only ones inside. There were loops bolted to the walls to secure their cuffs to, but the guards did not seem to think there was a need to avail themselves of them. 

Jim and Spock took seats opposite each other on the hard, metallic benches as the doors to the transport were slammed shut behind them. They maintained their silent regard of each other for the entire short ride to their place of execution.

When they arrived, the transport sat idling for a time on the edge of the public square where they were to be executed live on holovision, and Spock cleared his throat before opening his mouth to speak.

“So I guess the cavalry’s not coming after all,” Jim said, beating him to the punch.

“Apparently not.”

“I don’t know if there’s much more I can say at this point that I didn’t last night.”

“There is no need.”

There was a shout and a cheer outside that Spock attributed to one of the Denobist leaders – perhaps even Wrothgar himself – getting the assembled crowds excited for the impending show. He’d curse with disgust if it wasn’t so predictable. 

Jim jumped at the sound, and Spock noticed a fleeting expression of fear as they both caught each other’s eyes once more.

“I once said,” Spock began, his voice low and almost affectless, “that I would choose to turn off my feelings at the time of my death.”

Jim nodded. “You said it was because you cared too much.”

“I do. Sometimes I curse that part of me, but I do. I want you to know that I will not do that this time. My plan is to face my death while embracing those feelings.”

“I don’t know if I would do that if I could just turn it off.”

“But you have, haven’t you? When you were stricken with the plague on Antares V, I felt your acceptance of your death, your resignation in that moment.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Spock – I never doubted Bones would find a cure.”

Spock narrowed his eyes and Jim looked away; they both knew he was lying. “Be that as it may, I wonder if I might make a personal query?”

“Shoot,” Jim said, flinching again as a sharp, cracking sound caused the crowd outside to set up a cheer yet again; Spock could only surmise it was the testing of the machinery of their execution, though he refused to speculate what it might be.

“Do you find yourself as resigned to your death now as you were on that day?”

Jim blinked. “Do you know what you’re asking me? Confessions of emotional truths are anathema for most human men.”

“It is not so much what I am asking as what I am prepared to offer, Jim, and we are rapidly running out of time. There is a Vulcan ritual, it is called _kae’at snishau_ , or the mind-purge. Through it, I can effectively erase your higher consciousness – your thoughts and awareness – so that you will not have to face your execution in fear.”

“You would kill me before they could?”

“Negative. I would merely remove your ability to understand what was happening. Your mind would be a completely blank slate, as empty and unknowing as a plant or insect. Jim Kirk would cease to be.”

“Could you put it back? My consciousness?”

Spock shook his head.

“But I wouldn’t… have to watch them kill you?” 

“Correct.”

“How long will it take?”

“No more than two minutes. I just have to initiate a mind meld.”

“But what about you?”

“As I said, I will face my death openly. I will face it for the both of us.” 

“I don’t want to ask you to do that.”

“You are not asking. I am offering. Would you accept the _kae’at snishau_?”

Jim’s eyes were wide as he considered. Spock tried to read his emotions as they flitted across his face, doubt, fear, shame, and something else he could not name. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and when he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “Yes. Do it.”

Nodding once, Spock slid from the bench to his knees and moved closer to Jim. Pausing to center himself – what he was doing was akin to murder, after all – he reached both hands up before him and positioned the fingertips of his right hand above the meld points on Jim’s face. Jim opened his eyes then, and all Spock saw in them was his _t'hy'la_ ’s complete trust. 

The next second, the high-pitched whine of phaser cannon shocked them both to their cores. Outside, the arena erupted in shouts and screams as a firefight appeared to be happening. Explosions rocked the ground and Spock was thrown back against the bench he’d been sitting on. He hit his head and saw stars. Pushing himself to his knees, he shook his head to clear it and saw Jim crouched down beside the entrance. 

“Looks like the cavalry _has_ arrived, eh?” he said, a huge grin on his face as the sounds of a pitched battle raged outside their locked transport. 

A minute later, there was another sound of phaser fire, this one just outside and obviously from a pistol, and Jim’s entire body tensed as he moved in front of Spock protectively. Three seconds later, the doors were slung open, and before them stood Nyota, a fierce look on her face and pistol at the ready. She relaxed immediately upon seeing them, then frowned with worry as she took in the state of them. 

“We were too late – you’re dead already,” she commented, and Jim laughed. 

“Yeah, we’ve got to have a talk about your timing, Lieutenant,” he said, and allowed her to help him out of the transport. 

\----

There followed weeks of physical recovery, debriefings, and Starfleet-mandated psychological evaluation and treatment on Earth, during which Spock rarely saw Jim. When they did find themselves together, their conversations hit new lows of banality, settling more often on the weather in San Francisco and Federation politics than anything else. Jim could not meet Spock’s eye for long, and Spock found his withdrawal confusing in light of their ordeal and the closeness he felt they had shared.

“Give him some time,” Doctor McCoy muttered to Spock about a week after they’d both been cleared for duty and the ship was headed out on its first mission with the two of them back in command. They were on their way to Starbase 4 to pick up some Deltan diplomats, a milk run that had put Jim on edge. He’d been snappish and dismissive with Spock for the last three days.

“I am unsure what you may be referring to, Doctor,” Spock said, coming out of his reverie and proceeding to spoon his plomeek soup into his mouth. They were in the officers’ mess at lunch, and Spock was pointedly _not_ staring at the back of Jim’s head as he discussed gender politics in classic Russian literature with Scotty in front of Chekov, who looked like he’d swallowed a live toad.

“Sure you are. But you’ve both been through hell and back, and sometimes the lines get blurry, you know?”

Spock turned to look at McCoy as if seeing him for the first time; the doctor was capable of stunning insights from time to time, he would allow. He brought up a point that Spock had been perhaps too self-absorbed to consider.What they had done together, despite Spock’s own feelings on the matter, was a natural reaction to two persons being under an inordinate amount of stress. He had read too much into the encounter; Jim had merely taken the comfort that Spock had been only too willing to give. His aloofness since then was a product of his own recovery from their shared trauma. And while Spock had hopes that it might have been more, it would be illogical to pursue them where they would not be reciprocated. He resolved to suppress his feelings on the matter and carry on as usual. 

“You are right, Doctor. Thank you for your sound advice.”


	5. Chapter 5

Spock could hear Jim just outside the room where he lay, speaking to Doctor McCoy in a low voice he thought Spock couldn’t hear. He practically interrogated McCoy and the other injured members of the Away Team on what exactly happened and how it could have turned into such a “shit show.” Spock computed a 91.3% chance that later he would obsessively go over the mission recordings and logs, and all the tricorder readings, to get as complete an idea of what went wrong as he could. And he would do all of that without once talking to Spock.

Spock closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against the pain in his chest. Soon McCoy came to wheel him off to surgery, and when Spock finally caught sight of Jim, he was walking out of the sick bay.

\----

It was days later before Spock was allowed out of sick bay, and he made his way, alone, to his quarters to meditate and rest. His injuries were more serious than even he originally thought, and despite the effects of his Vulcan healing trance, he was ordered by McCoy to spend the next week convalescing in his quarters. He looked forward to the relative quietude; he’d been visited quite often by his friends and colleagues, who, after the trauma of the Q’raqusian mess and, now, an unexpected battle with Orion slavers who’d been victimizing an Andorian settlement, wanted to ensure themselves of his mental well-being. They needn’t have bothered, as it would be illogical for him to allow the deaths of three crewmen on an Away mission to affect his performance, would it not? 

Jim had not been among them, though.

In the month since they’d returned to duty after their captivity on Q’raqus, they had failed to regain any measure of the camaraderie they had once shared, a fact that caused Spock much consternation, but that he had no choice but to accept. He and Jim spoke only in the course of their duties, and rarely spent time together away from the bridge except for in meetings and for scheduled inspections.

Spock showered immediately once he returned to his quarters, donned sleeping attire, then lay on his bed atop the covers, with his hands folded on his stomach, attempting to enter a light, meditative trance. Moments later, there was a chime at his door. He ordered the computer to open it; he didn’t bother to ask who it was because he already suspected. 

It was a pattern, after all. 

Jim stood in the doorway, a stricken look on his face. Spock struggled to sit up, intending to stand to greet him, but he crossed the space between them in less than a second and was on his knees before Spock had a chance to right himself. Jim laid his head in Spock’s lap for several minutes, breathing heavily, and eventually Spock realized he was crying. Spock threaded his fingers through the tangled mess of his hair and curled over him, breathing deeply of his scent. He had not, apparently, washed in days. 

Spock didn’t care about that, though. He found, in fact, that he no longer cared about the estrangement and distance between them, not in this moment, not with Jim’s desperation beating an incessant tattoo against his mind. Not with Jim here.

_sorry so sorry_

Spock put a hand under Jim’s chin, lifted his face so that he could look into his eyes, and caressed the side of his face with an open palm. Jim rose up on his knees suddenly, hands at Spock’s shoulders with sudden need as he kissed him, making desperate sounds in his throat. Spock sank back onto the bed, dragging Jim with him, the captain’s movements getting increasingly agitated until he finally whined, “Please.”

_pleasepleaseplease_

Spock fumbled with the waistband of his sleeping pants as Jim raised himself up on his own knees and stripped, and soon they were completely naked and again kissing with the kind of urgency Spock hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on or to miss. After a moment, Spock pushed Jim away, though he held onto his hand as he turned onto his side facing away from him, offering himself. Jim stretched out behind him, kissing his neck and shoulder as he reached down to prep Spock. 

“No. Now. Please, Jim,” Spock heard himself saying, his voice rough with want, with need, with… something he couldn’t name, urgency that was not entirely his. 

There was a cold space as Jim left him to fetch a condom from a bedside drawer. When he returned, he pressed his body up behind Spock’s and kissed the back of Spock’s neck. Spock arched his back against Jim, and spread his legs, and soon felt the head of Jim’s penis at this hole, its girth at once desired and a surprise. Spock sucked in a breath as he was breached, and Jim slid his arms around his body, holding onto him desperately, the kisses at his neck becoming harder, becoming bites as he pushed into Spock. 

Spock closed his eyes against the drag and the stretch, tears leaking from his eyes unwanted, whimpering as Jim pushed in a little too fast, a little too greedy for it now. 

_need this  
thought I’d lost  
this  
god, don’t do this to me_

Jim’s thoughts and emotions bounced around in Spock’s head, buffeting at what remained of his mental shields and sweeping them aside again until, finally, they merged with his, and he could no longer discern his own feelings from Jim’s. He needed this, had needed it since Khan, since Antares V, since Q’raqus, since a realization that he might never have this again took hold in his gut and never really left. Spock reached behind to grab at Jim’s ass, urging him forward, pulling him tighter. 

_morepleasemore_

Jim began to pump into Spock, his movements shallow and awkward, the lack of preparation making Spock too tight for this, too tight for much movement of any kind, but all Spock knew was that it was not enough, could not be enough. 

It never was enough.

He bowed his head, used his left hand, gripping the sheets, as leverage to press himself backward against Jim, anything for more leverage, more of Jim. Jim rolled them so that Spock was face down on the bed, a hand between his shoulder blades, steadying him, holding him down. At this angle, the movement was easier, but Spock still hissed at the burn; the condom was lubricated, but it was not enough. He didn’t care. He closed his eyes, and tears began to flow behind his lids, fueled by emotions he was no longer sure were Jim’s or his. They soon overwhelmed him, though, and he gave up trying to repress his sobs, feeling the tears soak into the sheets beneath his cheek. But suddenly Jim was there, his chest pressing into Spock’s back, murmuring, “You’re OK, you’re OK now,” over and over, his tone more questioning than reassuring. 

Jim came moments later, his entire body taut with it. He pulled gently out of Spock, and they collapsed into a tangle of limbs on the bed. Jim reached around to stroke at Spock’s achingly hard member and Spock hissed and flinched away. He was too hard, too sensitive. 

“Hey, it’s OK,” Jim assured him, but Spock could not be touched like this, and he came rutting against the sheets without a hand on him.

Spock realized he was shaking now, and that he could not stop it, could not pinpoint the reason for it, either. By now, he was used to the emotional transference that intimate contact with Jim brought, but the intensity of his own reaction caught him by surprise. Spock pulled away when Jim tried to slide his arms around him, did not turn over, preferring to face away from him. Jim turned onto his back and lay there; it was a long, long time before either of them spoke.

“Why do we only do this when one of us has nearly died?” Spock asked, finally putting words to the question he could never ask before, but which now was the only thing he could think of.

Jim sighed. Then he answered, “Because one of us has nearly died.”

“That is not a satisfactory answer.”

“We have survived, we need to share that with someone. It’s a way of taking comfort, Spock, and giving it. It’s not like this is the first time this has happened.”

Spock sat up and turned to face him. “But I do not think I take comfort in it, not in the long run. I find I want more, Jim. Further, it is my belief that I deserve it, though such a sentiment does seem self-centered to my ears even as I utter it.”

“Spock, you know I can’t.”

“I know nothing of the sort, for we never discuss it, not with any degree of seriousness. Even so, I cannot have sexual relations with you on these terms. Or will no longer, which is the more accurate phrasing. This grasping for each other only in times of crisis is insufficient to fulfill my needs.”

Jim sat up, looking angry. “I don’t think you want a relationship with me, Spock. I’m damaged goods.”

“According to whom?”

“According to everyone. Starfleet shrinks, past relationships, hell even my own family. Abandonment issues, daddy issues – take your pick, I’m a walking fucking cliché.” 

Spock’s eyes met Jim’s. He saw the pain, fear, and doubt in their blue depths, emotions he’d seen and even felt from him in the past, and so he gave what he next said careful thought. 

“Bullshit.”

“What did you just say to me?”

“I apologize – did I fail to use the colloquialism in its proper context? I was given to understand that when a person finds his equivocations discovered and subsequently reacts by deflecting the conversation to irrelevant matters, it was incumbent upon the second party to call ‘bullshit.’ Was I incorrect?”

“I can’t believe you.” 

“I further posit that such behavior shows a shameful level of cowardice which I find, frankly, surprising. Are you not the man who faced down Nero? The man who died to save his ship and his crew when Khan was intent on our destruction?” 

Jim’s eyes shot daggers at Spock, even as he continued talking, “Did you not expose yourself to certain death on Antares V to save the life of one person?” 

Fighting to remain calm, Spock reached out and took Jim’s hand in both of his. “Are you not my _t'hy'la_?” he asked quietly, finally realizing what that word meant to him, what this relationship was to him, “The man who loves me, as I love you?”

“I can’t do this Spock.” 

“Because it scares you.”

Jim snatched his hand away, but Spock already felt the truth of the statement through their connection. “That’s not fair.”

“Tell me what you find so disturbing.”

Jim really was angry now, his eyes flashing. “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the touch telepath!”

Spock would not be baited. “After what we have done, and the number of times we have done it, the time to be concerned by that has long passed.”

Jim’s mouth closed with an audible click.

“Tell me what you are afraid of.”

“Don’t make me tell you. I can’t tell you.”

“Jim, I cannot abide this. If you will not tell me, I can respect that, but I will not go on like this.” He stood, pulling himself to his full height with as much dignity as he could muster while being completely naked. “Captain Kirk, I respectfully tender my resignation from my position as your Executive Officer, and will put in for a transfer through the proper channels.” He turned and began to pick up their clothes and sort through them.

“Spock, come on,” Jim implored, but Spock would not be moved. It would pain him to leave this ship, to leave Jim and all the friends he’d made here, but perhaps it would be for the best. Having sorted through their clothes, he held Jim’s uniform out to him with an outstretched arm, face as impassive as he could make it.

“Losing you,” Jim murmured into the tense silence, eyes on the floor. 

Spock raised an eyebrow. 

Jim’s eyes flashed up at him, then returned to perusing the floor, and spoke slowly, “I am terrified of it. So part of me – a really big part – figures if I never _have_ you, then I can’t lose you.”

“Jim, that is –“

“Illogical, I know. Every time one of us comes back hurt or almost dies on a mission, it gets to be too much and I just need some reassurance that you’re here with me for a little while longer. And I know I’m weak, I know it’s wrong and unfair to you and selfish, Spock, but I am a weak and wrong and selfish man. 

“Why else do you think I would have let you _erase my mind_ , Spock? Not because I was afraid to die, but because I couldn’t watch them kill you. I would have let you die alone rather than live through it, and it’s why I can’t be with you. 

“I _am_ a coward, Spock, if you die, it will end me. And I can’t face what me without you looks like.”

Spock was momentarily speechless.

“So there you have it – that’s what scares me. Losing his first officer is what scares the shit out of Jim Kirk. Pretty stupid, huh?”

Spock returned to the bed and sat on a bent leg. “Yes, it is very stupid,” he agreed, to Jim’s bark of bitter laughter. “But truthful.” 

He reached for Jim’s face and made him look into his eyes. “Neither of us can predict what will happen, Jim, so why should we deny ourselves even one, fleeting moment of happiness for fear of what may or may not happen?”

“ _Kai’idth_?” Jim said, blinking back the tears in his eyes.

“Now you understand. If we live in fear of what may be, we deny ourselves of what is.”

“Heavy. Is that some Vulcan proverb?”

Spock shook his head. “I believe I once read it on a greeting card.”

Jim laughed again, and all at once the mood in the room shifted. He raised his hand and placed it on Spock’s wrist, turning it and his head so that he could kiss the inside of it. “Can you ever forgive me for being so stupid?” he asked.

“I already have.”

“You really love me?” Jim asked, seemingly unsure of the truth of it.

Spock leaned forward and let his kiss be the answer.

 _yesss_  
\----

 

Thank you for your time.

**Author's Note:**

> • This story was inspired by a ficlet I wrote for Trekmas entitled “Talk About the Passion,” the fourth part in this fic post: “[Five Porny Ficlets!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/620911)” It creates the backstory of the original, which became chapter 5 in this story and has been significantly altered in order to fit the new narrative and make it work in a post-ST:ID story  
> • The title of the original ficlet is from an REM song, and this title is a line from that song, as well as a French phrase that can mean, “How much time [does it take],” or so the interwebs tell me. I don’t speak French, but that seems to sum up poor Spock’s journey with Jim here.  
> • Special thanks to rhaegal and awarrington for posting a transcript of the film; I’m not sure my memory would’ve been quite so good otherwise.  
> • And last but certainly not least, thanks to my trusty betas, miri_thompson and winterstar95, who make everything better.
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr @rabidchild67, I hope you'll consider following me there.


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